


In My DNA

by eniaenia



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Character, Eventual Smut, From the start to end of Idol Producer, Idol ProducerAU, It totally could have happened like this, M/M, Pining, it takes them a while, starting from the beginning, they are figuring things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-05-24 17:01:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eniaenia/pseuds/eniaenia
Summary: A warm look, and even warmer skin, was all it took.(Or Cai Xukun, the guy always in control, finds himself slowly losing it at the worst possible time.)





	1. Chapter 1

Butterflies. Tingles. Tiny pinpricks under his skin.

Xukun knew the game by now. His rookie days already felt like eons behind him. He knew about camera angles, and fan service, and how to play the audience at home for effect (case in point: the choker). His make-up was just right. His collarbones were strategically visible. He was about to perform his own song, after already having debuted in another popular show. He had a tough as nails manager, and a wardrobe person, and three other trainers on retainer, plus a million people cheering him on daily on Weibo, or at least acknowledging he was someone to have an opinion about, even if the opinion was annoyance or jealousy. 

He didn’t care: it was all attention, and attention meant ads, and ads meant income, and income meant more money to perfect his craft, be more prepared, be better, achieve more. He was in a good place. He was ready.

That didn’t matter though. He still got painfully jittery in the moments just before stepping on stage. Once there, he hit the switch and became the Kunkun his fans expected. Beforehand, his mind drifted to all the ways in which he had to excel in the long hours to come, the ways in which he could embarrass himself, the frankly crazy unlikelihoods he hadn’t yet considered via a hundred different angles, which might choose just this moment to beat the odds, and appear. He had long learned that if he doesn’t control things, and control them without fail, they’ll control him. He’s already had enough control for this lifetime.

Worst of all, in this pre-performance whirlwind, he was alone. To be fair, he’d become used to it. His SWIN teammates were more business partners than real friends, though the fate that befell them all was shared, and none of their fault either. He had been training alone for years, supported by his family. It was enough for him, especially when he saw what trouble companies could bring. But now, he wondered whether having someone there, to get him out of his head and share the burden, might be a nice change for once. The fact that the producers decided to keep his participation a secret until the very last moment didn’t help. Most of the trainees had either their company mates with them, or had brought family to the pre-taping. He was kept entirely away, first for the pre-taping at a different location, then in his van waiting outside, until they called him into a separate corridor leading to the stage for his initial reveal. Even the waiting area mirror, as useful as it was for his final hair check, didn’t help. He could see the jitters in his posture, and the pretend smile on his face – the one he whipped out when he saw cameras, now almost on instinct. 

Ok, breathe. Just as he was reconsidering how to greet everyone, the producer gave him a wave, and he was on. Ok. Ok. 

Ok. 

He walked the length of the tunnel, and with each step felt Kunkun surface. Nervous smiles for the audience: check. Shy glances to the floor: check. Back straight and eyes up toward the camera: check. The noise was there already. Hoots, gasps, envious glances, unashamed staring. The symphony of reactions he’d learned to expect, and set aside. 

He felt himself ease into the stage, and greeted his fellow competitors. The seats were only half empty, so his eyes naturally travelled to the very top, where a dark haired boy sat in the Number 2 seat. He was too far for Xukun to see his features clearly, but he was fairly sure he didn’t recognise him. This was a surprise. After a few years in the industry, he had a relatively good grasp of top trainees from main companies, as well as those who participated in other shows. It was his job to know the competition. Whoever this guy was, he was an unknown. As a general point of principle, Xukun wasn’t a fan of those.

He made his way slowly up the stairs, hesitating as planned to make it seem like he was deciding whether or not to take the top spot. Truth be told, he decided days before to place himself in the top 9, in as visible a place as possible, but never higher than 3. He was known already. There was a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and Xukun had learned long ago not to cross it. With every speck of popularity came more critical attention. He wasn’t going to ruin an initial impression, especially after half the people watching already felt his place is yet to be earned. He would earn it though: by working harder than anyone, being himself, and staying smart. 

He gave polite smiles to others while walking up, as expected, and slotted himself into the Number 6 spot after a brief pause. In that tiny moment, as his body was already turning into the row to his left, he finally looked up to Number 2.

After the taping finally concluded, as he settled into an only semi-awkward first night at the dorms, Xukun thought back to that moment. He couldn’t really understand why he felt unsettled by it. The boy’s brown eyes were warm and direct as they looked into his. His lips opened into a small, but easy smile. He inclined his head toward him, clapping politely. He held his gaze as Xukun moved into his row, then sat back down. Xukun could hear him clapping behind his back for the rest of the introductions, but could not move to look. He also avoided looking up at him during his performance, though couldn’t avoid him when returning to his seat. He again looked at him warmly, clapping as Xukun sat down, and remained silent behind his back. It was unnerving. 

Xukun wanted to tell himself it was because he didn’t like not being able to tell if he was looking at him or not. Realistically though, he knew that would be a lie. He had trained himself not to care about people looking at him – what was another guy doing the same? But the questions remained, swirling in his head half an hour after he should have gone to bed to meet his sleeping schedule. Finally tired of the questions, and of already being off his game, he reached out to his small bunk bed clip-on light, and settled in to sleep. As he dozed off, the final thing he registered was a pair of warm eyes, with small happy wrinkles at the side, and a steady gaze that saw right through.

/ / / 

The next morning, Xukun woke at 4.30 am and snuck outside to the showers, careful not to wake Zhou Rui. He was still getting used to having roommates again, and while they were unfailingly polite to him last night, his continued troubles connecting with people remained. To start with, he’s always felt slightly awkward with strangers. His popularity only made it worse. He could now categorise 90% of interactions he has as falling into one of two camps. The first is people fakely embracing him, behaving as if they are immediately super close. He’d learned to avoid those people like all forms of cataclysmic plague. The other camp is people who point, whisper, take sneaky but entirely obvious photos, don’t look him in the eyes, and generally treat him like he’s another format of human. Both camps had nothing to do with him as a person, and everything to do with who he seems to be. All surface, no real. It made for painful conversations, even worse relations, and frankly no interest. As a result, other than Chan and Tian, who he grew up with, his friendships were almost entirely non-existent. 

He’d be lying if he said it didn’t bother him, but most of the time he was too busy to feel it as a loss. With 90+ other guys around him now, and cameras in all their faces non-stop, he knew he’d have to make it work somehow. He could be as friendly as the next guy, and prided himself on treating everyone with respect. It wouldn’t be hard to at least be a good teammate while on camera. 

But first, a quick shower, then return to normal training. They were given only 72 hours to perfect an individual theme song performance, and the first A team pre-meeting was already scheduled to start in a few hours. He might have just enough time to do his usual stretches properly and memorise the lyrics, before scheduled individual practice, then the big meeting in the auditorium.

As he rushed into the bathroom, pushing the door forcefully, he moved quickly toward the shower stalls, then stopped a few metres in, the door slamming loudly in his wake. In front of him wasn’t the empty bathroom he was expecting, though you couldn’t tell from the deafening silence in the space. Instead, Number 2 from yesterday was crouched over one of the sinks, his hands resting on top. Their eyes met in the mirror: his calm and steady, Xukun’s unexpectedly wide. He had a flashback to last night, then tore his gaze away.

That was a big mistake.

Number 2 had a towel wrapped around a narrow waist. The rest of him was bare, including what Xukun promptly registered as frankly offensively wide shoulders, and a back rippled with toned muscle. His hair was slicked back, dripping wet drops onto his skin. The skin itself looked smooth and warm. How can skin look warm?

After what felt like minutes of him processing increasingly moronic thoughts, but was likely only a second or two, Xukun snapped out of it, and looked back to Number 2 in the mirror. His gaze was still the same, as if Xukun’s wandering eyes didn’t really register, or else didn’t change a thing. He then smiled, and turned around to face him, walking across slowly, as Xukun stood rooted to the spot. He came to a stop in front of Xukun, back comfortably straight and without a hint of shame, a low heat radiating from his body across the small expanse of space separating them. He must have just stepped out of the shower. 

“You are Cai Xukun, right? I didn’t get a chance to say hello properly yesterday. I’m Wang Ziyi, nice to meet you”. 

Ziyi reached out with his right hand, a small smile on his face, looking at Xukun expectedly. 

“Ah yes, hello, nice to meet you as well”.

Xukun placed his hand into Ziyi’s larger one and shook it, feeling once more an odd warmth that he was far too quickly beginning to associate with someone he’d seen only twice in his life. Ziyi simply kept looking at him, like he was waiting for Xukun to continue the conversation, or if he preferred, not to. It was a choice rarely given to him, certainly not without some kind of strings attached. Ziyi’s gaze though revealed none of that, simply a small curiosity of sorts. It made Xukun simultaneously want to run back to his room and tell him all his secrets. Very disconcerting.

“Well, I best get going then. I promised my roommate I would help him memorise lines before our practice. I’ll see you later, Xukun”. 

Ziyi turned back to pick up his things from the sink, sent a quiet wave and smile to Xukun as he twisted past him, and closed the door slowly. The bathroom was back to deadly silent. As far as Xukun’s brain was concerned though, there was nothing but noise. In his ears was the frantic rush of his heartbeat. 

And the pinpricks. And the tingles. 

And the butterflies.


	2. Chapter 2

It took Xukun a fifteen-minute shower, ten minutes longer than usual, to finally get from under the spell that was Ziyi and his brief conversation. Naked, eyes closed, he stood semi-paralised under the pounding water, echoing the increasingly panicked turmoil inside his head. He couldn’t help but re-run the entire scene in this head, over and over again. Ziyi had seemed so calm, and steady, and not affected. He didn’t pretend to be close, or ignore him entirely. He was that 10% of social encounters that Xukun was already disastrously poorly prepared for. Combine that with the obvious interest Ziyi showed, without the usual pressure, and Xukun had no idea how to approach this. As far as Xukun was concerned, Ziyi was the 1% of the 10%.

After those (shameful) fifteen minutes, Xukun finally managed to remind himself that he wasn’t here to be distracted by perfectly normal early morning scenes, and stepped outside to towel off. He was already running behind his set schedule, which was unheard of. He had plans and he stuck to them. 

First last night’s sleep schedule, then this morning’s wake up call. He knew better than to be distracted like this. 

He made his way to the room. The rest of his roommates, including Zhou Rui, were still lightly snoring away. He had no heart to wake them, but also felt it was too early: he didn’t know yet how seriously they were taking this entire competition. The last thing he wanted was to wake them, and deal with their confusion, or worse yet, annoyance for having presumed this was in any way his place. Easier to simply do his own thing, as always. 

The staff told them days ago that training rooms would be available on a first come, first served basis. He knew that meant getting there before everyone else, or not being able to practice effectively. It was still early in the competition, but he’d done this before: he still carried the traces of the harsh judgments and the painfully public heartbreak that were certainly coming. He had no desire to wait around for that to hit everyone else before getting down to work. He was here for one thing only: to sit in that Number 1 chair, and debut with the hottest boy group in China. No more false starts. No more distractions.

Just as he was setting up his usual warmup playlist on his phone, Xukun’s eyes caught a pair of trainees in one of the side rooms. He had every intention of walking past, but then recognised who it was, and paused. The inside of the room was just visible through the small glass window on the door from the angle Xukun stood at. 

Ziyi was sitting on the floor, facing another boy. He could see him glance every so often at the paper in his hand, then back at the other. Xukun realised they were memorising lyrics – this must have been the roommate Ziyi mentioned in the bathroom earlier. At one point, the other boy huffed and looked down at his feet, seemingly having messed up the line. Ziyi reached out to his right knee, with a pat and a small smile. His head was awkwardly tilted down to the right, trying to make eye contact with his still reluctant roommate. Xukun couldn’t tell what he was saying exactly, but he was certain from the body language it was encouragements. At some point, his roommate burst out with a tight laugh and looked up, to which Ziyi answered with a blinding smile, patting him on his shoulder. In that moment, Xukun realised he was basically spying on two unsuspecting fellow trainees, one of whom he saw practically naked less than an hour ago. He dashed off to the far room, making sure to quietly click the door behind him.

That afternoon came sooner than he realised, after hours spent in his usual focused training. Headphones on, zero diversions. His fellow trainees largely avoided the room he was in, though there weren’t that many available. It was one of the assistant producers who knocked on his door, and direct him to the auditorium, where the next filming with teacher Li Ronghao was set to start in half an hour. He just managed to fix up his makeup and hair, before rushing across.

He should have known of course that the small size of the A class likely meant he would be near Ziyi. What he didn’t quite count on was them standing next to each other during the auditorium test. The show producers seem to have decided this was a good fit, maybe because Ziyi had sat in the Number 2 seat and everyone expected Xukun to do well. With his TV show experience hat on, this was likely a blatant effort to foreshadow their supposed competition for the top place. It was cheap, but cheap still sold to the audiences at home.

Either way, Xukun was nervous enough as it was, the usual pre-stage jitters in full swing. He didn’t need to feel the brush of Ziyi’s sweatshirt on his left arm, or register his quiet ‘Hello, Xukun’ as they lined up centimetres away from each other. He could have also lived without hearing Ziyi’s sharp inhale when it became clear they were going to have to sing in front of everyone. 

Xukun already knew his voice was going to break on that high note. The fact that Ziyi went quiet in the same place didn’t make it any better. They were tanking. The rest of the trainees stood there and watched, as Xukun and the rest made fools of themselves in front of the clearly better B team. He wasn’t a strong vocalist, but that never stopped him from winning. From Ziyi’s small flicks of his right wrist, as they stood aside for the B team, he could tell this wasn’t sitting well with Ziyi either. Damn, damn, damn. 

If he had learned one lesson, it was that hard work pays, and so does experience. This was just one day. Tomorrow was a full complement of schedules, starting with a team A lesson with teacher Li Ronghao in front of the cameras. He would practice tonight, and do better then. He had to. 

As the PD announced the end of activities for tonight, Xukun paused at the end of the stage. All around him, trainees were pairing up in their companies, or across them. He saw the Yue Hua guys consoling Justin, Zhu Zhengting looking worried as well. The Banana Culture guys were huddled together too. Most of the As split off, hugging friends, and exchanging consolations. He shouldn’t have been surprised to find himself outside of all that. A different person would have perhaps deluded themselves that it was because he was an individual trainee. The truth of the matter though was the other trainees were largely still uncomfortable with him. Zhou Rui was an independent trainee too, and there he was hugging Zhu Xingjie. Even Ziyi, who no longer had his company teammates with him, was still on stage. Xukun spotted him warmly congratulating Linong, then Xiao Gui, before making his way through the entire F team one by one. He seemed entirely at ease. Xukun found himself momentarily jealous that someone would find it as easy to be so comfortably themselves.

Xukun expressed a small sigh only he could hear, and turned around to make his way back to the practice room, thanking the staff as he want. There was clearly no use wasting time here. He reached the corridor, and was about to step in, when he heard it. 

“Cai Xuhun!”

Huh?

He twisted around to see Ziyi slowly running across to him, and stopping with a small smile. 

“Hey. I realised I didn’t see you leave the stage, so thought I’d come find you.”

“Oh”. Well done, Xukun. Magnificent eloquence. 

Before he could think of a more civilized response, Ziyi’s smile slowly slid off his face, his eyes focusing in on Xukun’s. 

“How are you holding up?”

Ziyi stood there again in silence, patiently waiting for Xukun to say something. It was an easy question. Xukun really shouldn’t be standing there like a block of cheese, pierced by a simple expression of concern he’d heard from his mother (and dismissed) on a weekly basis. 

But here’s the thing: there was no template. He went through an entire Super Idol without being asked this once. In front of the cameras, the competition was tense, and genuine friendliness rare. Once the cameras were switched off, the trainees dispersed into cliques, which most certainly didn’t include him. He was the competition, and he didn’t play ball with their offline schemes to influence voters. They left him alone. Not to mention, he was Kunkun – he was expected to do all of this in his sleep. Quite why everyone seemingly thought that hard work would affect him less than anyone else, his talent and achievements aside, he never understood. Until this point though, no one had ever bothered to check. 

“Xukun?”

Ziyi had shifted and was now leaning on the wall, still patiently looking at him, a small smile tugging on the right corner of his lips. 

He looked like he saw. He looked like he understood. He looked like he meant it.

Xukun lips finally cracked into a small, genuine smile. 

“I’m ok”. 

///

The next morning, Xukun found himself with the rest of the A team in a practice room, facing a blank-faced teacher Li Ronghao. Xukun was still scared of that high note, but felt more ready. Ziyi had smiled at him when he walked in earlier, and tapped the floor next to him for Xukun to sit, as he continued to chat with Linong. They were soon rearranged when the teacher entered, but it was good to see that whatever discomfort Xukun felt in the last few days was gone. After Ziyi quietly acknowledged his “ok” with one of his own last night, and walked off, Xukun felt a sense of calm come over him. 

Ziyi was friendly, and that was ok. It was nothing more than that. He could now get back to his plans, the odd feeling of the last few days set aside for more important things.

Ziyi still remained somewhat of a mystery though. Frankly, it bugged him. Xukun would have found his answer to the teacher greasy on anyone else. With Ziyi saying it though, the sentiment of him not being good enough, but loving singing and wishing to learn sounded heartfelt and overwhelmingly honest. It made everyone slightly shift in the room, him included. Xukun registered that as interesting. When did they become so immune to genuine to find it almost physically painful?

Later on that afternoon, he saw Ziyi in a practice room with Linong, helping him with the dance. Their earlier dance practice with Zhou Jiequiong was bad for most of them, but far worse for Linong, given the pitiful two months of dance training under his belt. There was no way to hide that in a room brimming with decades of dancing under their feet, teacher Zhou included. Linong looked frazzled when he predictably made a mistake, but Ziyi simply smiled at him, and guided him with his arm to start again. 

Xukun couldn’t quite figure out why Ziyi was doing this. Ziyi’s own singing left much to desire. While he was a good dancer, the song was a tough one for anyone to crack in 48 hours. He could have easily taken himself to a corner and practiced on his own. Instead, here Xukun was, watching Ziyi force-feed Linong a power bar and water, instead of practicing himself. 

When he said Ziyi was very earnest and hard working on camera later on that afternoon, it wasn’t something Xukun needed to think much about, even though the question caught him somewhat unawares. It was a fact, and it would have been churlish not to acknowledge it. 

Xukun was also increasingly conscious that this was true to an extent that likely far exceeded what the show let into its final editing. Cameras didn’t see the late nights between Jeffrey and Ziyi, practicing in the camera-less corridor. They didn’t see him checking in on the other classes’ practice rooms on the way back to the dorms, distributing waters, and encouraging them to keep going. 

Xukun felt oddly relieved that once the taped evaluations started, this didn’t affect Ziyi performance too much. He fumbled the words, and didn’t really get the rhythm down a hundred percent. In a complete departure to his usual character, Xukun was strangely certain he would be ok though. Quite why he had such a powerful feeling of certainty, he couldn’t explain. He had seen how camera editing left certain trainees who started well doing abysmally in the end. He witnessed trainees losing too much sleep and energy, and falling short at a key time. He knew there was more room for luck and appearance in this business than many would feel comfortable with. 

But Ziyi’s “I wish to stay in A class with him” was still echoing in his head. Xukun had accidentally overheard it during taped interviews earlier, having stayed behind to discuss his planned absence in the coming weeks with a senior PD. It made him momentarily blush. As usual, Ziyi’s earnestness was painfully evident. Xukun knew better than most that this was an unfair game from start to finish, but there must be some cosmic justice for people like that in all of this too, right? 

The evaluation recording results themselves were a blur. He registered little of what was said, until Ziyi was called and demoted to the B group. Xukun couldn’t catch his eye afterwards – the first time since they had met. Then his name was called, and the jitters returned with all their might. He had to pinch his sweatshirt with his right hand to stop it from shaking. Without planning to, his eyes caught Ziyi’s just as Zhang PD announced Lin Chaoze and him were safe. Momentarily overcome with relief, he closed his eyes for a second, only to return to Ziyi’s steady ones. For the first time, their meaning was entirely obvious to Xukun. It was don’t worry. It was you’re ok. And maybe, just maybe, I’m here. 

He physically forced himself to look away, and kept looking away as the centre competition announcement was made. The A team members were supposed to individually come up with a new routine to the theme song within an hour, and perform it in front of all the trainees. They would then vote for the person who would stand at the centre of the theme song performance during recording. 

He knew he wanted it. He knew he could do it. He also knew, without having to look, that there was a pair of eyes following him out to the practice room. It felt like they were helping make sure he knew it too.

When it came, the centre performance was another blur. He thought using Zhang PD’s dance was likely less than original, but the sing along at the end worked, and he felt ok about his effort, smiling a genuine smile for once at the end. 

When he finally caught Ziyi’s eyes at that final beat though, all his hard won calm went out of the window. 

In Ziyi’s open gaze, there was quiet pride, and familiar warmth, and something else. 

In one desperate second, before Ziyi broke their connection to answer Justin tugging at him, it struck, tilting Xukun right off his centre again. 

///

The morning following the theme song filming came at them too fast. This time, a 5.30 am wakeup call by the assistants for makeup and hair before recording. 

Xukun was already awake. Of course he was. He’d spent the last hour dissecting what that ‘something else’ in Ziyi’s eyes could be. At this stage, Xukun had thought so hard that he wasn’t at all sure if perhaps ‘something’ was ever there in the first place. 

He had to get a grip. 

Just as he was rolling out of bed and pulling on his sweatshirt, a knock came at the door. After a second, Zhou Rui opened the door slightly, then wider to reveal a grinning Ziyi. 

“You guys ready? Let’s get it!”

There Ziyi was, selflessly reaching out to him, yet again. Who was Xukun to reject it. 

///

The group competition announcement was a pleasant surprise, especially when Zhang PD announced Xukun could choose his preferred song and team first. He could feel the steady heat of Ziyi’s gaze on the back of his neck, as the announcement rippled through the trainees. Ziyi of course didn’t say anything, or reach out to him from the row above. He never would. 

How was Xukun so sure of that? But also, did he really need to be?

They worked well together. Xukun saw him help others. Ziyi seemed switched on, smart and dedicated. The show producers seemed to like him well too – he was featured in their edits quite often in the first episode, especially given he wasn’t the most attention seeking of trainees. Their rap styles were completely different, so wouldn’t clash. Even with all that nicely lined up for his team’s benefit, he found himself momentarily hesitating. Why? Because of that first morning? Because of the look from yesterday? Because Xukun was clearly deluding himself into something that wasn’t here? 

He had, had to get a grip. Ziyi was decent, Ziyi was good, Ziyi was... a friend.

‘My first pick is…. Wang Ziyi’. 

Xukun couldn’t help the wide smile that broke out of him, looking up to the clearly flustered Ziyi. His face was still for a second, etched with surprise, before his camera personality kicked in. The red tips of his ears were still there though, as he made his way across to Xukun. When they embraced, he could feel Ziyi's right hand squeezing the back of his neck lightly, and tucking into him for a small second, a whoosh too quiet for the cameras coming out of him. When they separated, Ziyi's fingers lightly brushed across the inside of Xukun's wrist, then turned back to the camera's with a hyped up smile, back to normal. Xukun's neck remained warm for the rest of the session. His wrist tingled. 

For the first time, it hit Xukun that the steady surface persona of Ziyi’s wasn’t all vast calm oceans, all the time, after all.

///

Most people were easily dissected, categorised, and placed into appropriate roles that made sense to Xukun. Engage, use, keep happy, ignore, avoid. 

Cut, fold, move. Easy. 

Ziyi though – he was like no category he could recognise. 

A 1% unknown. 

That night, as his phone blinked 2:47 am, Xukun found himself thinking. Thinking that, maybe, not all unknowns were all that bad.


	3. Chapter 3

EXO’s Growl was blasting through the room at full volume. Xukun felt like there was a towering mountain of nervous energy he needed to blast through too. Growl was a favourite: he could do the choreography backwards and forwards by now, having done it so many times for warm up on days like this. Days when the fire under his feet burned just a little bit hotter. 

He was just getting to his favourite part, getting high off the burst of endorphins he could feel being released in waves, when he spotted Ziyi walking in. 

“Ha! I knew you were an EXO fan boy, Mr. I Love Zhang Yixing”, he said with a laugh. 

Xukun paused with his hands at his waist, then grinned, eyes shifting into small crescents. Two could play this game. “Yeah, so what? As if you’re not.”

“EXO out and proud, baby”, Ziyi quipped with a dramatic wink, making Xukun laugh in surprise. Ziyi gave a small grin of his own in response. 

Xukun had never seen him like this: unguarded and relaxed, his brown eyes less tired than they’ve been for days, his pony tail sticking out higher than usual – a sort of man palm tree. Or pineapple. It was… it was cute. 

“What’s up? Been here long?”

“Half an hour, just warming up before we start our group practice. Wanna join?”

Ziyi gave another open smile. “Growl at 5 in the morning? Where do I sign up?”

Xukun smiled at him and walked back to the speaker to start the song again. As he turned back around, he saw Ziyi just finish twisting out of his sweatshirt to reveal a low cut wife-beater shirt, lithe arm muscles on full display. He turned around to face Xukun, and smiled another wide smile, his arms reaching up to fix his tussled pony tail. Xukun just managed to catch him with his hair down for a second, and had a wholly unprompted thought: Ziyi was handsome. Really handsome. 

Slightly unnerved, he turned back to the mirrors and looked down, urging himself to put that smile back on. Ziyi walked across, bumping his shoulder slightly, and standing next to him. He was slightly taller, but somehow felt like a towering presence.

“Ready, Mr. Obvious Fan Boy?”

“Ready, Mr. Old Man. Try and keep up without breaking anything, ok?” Xukun saw the pretend outraged smile peel off Ziyi’s face, and kicked into the choreography, the momentary bout of nerves set aside for the liberating feel of music.

 

///

 

By the time everyone else arrived for start of pre-filming makeup an hour later, Xukun felt something had shifted between them. Perhaps it was him who was finally relaxing, or maybe it was that Ziyi’s obviously good morning, but things felt lighter somehow. Some forty minutes ago, as they lay spread-eagled and sweaty on the floor of the practice room, Ziyi had told him with a small smile he was looking forward to working together. Xukun’s heart gave a shy thump at that. 

It was good. They were friends. This is what friends do. 

Before long, the producers directed them to their room for the start of group practice. Xukun quickly sobered up, reminding himself he was here for a purpose. He knew he picked a good team, a strategically strong team. It still meant he had to be the one to lead it though, especially as the song was already a winner. Double the exposure would mean double the advance in the competition, if he could play his cards right.

He was relieved when Rui volunteered to act as leader, citing his older age. Xukun knew it made sense, least of all because his roommate seemed like a really sound guy. They still didn’t know each other too well, but he voted for Xukun yesterday, and brought him water last night. He would be fair. 

That left the spot of the centre.

He knew that Zhengting would raise his hand as well. He was good, but Xukun was better, and being the centre of the group performance was made for the best. He had to be considerate about it, but it was too early to be gentlemanly about offering opportunities to others when his own weren’t anywhere near secure. 

The two of them sang, then danced, as Rui suggested. He knew this wouldn’t be the end of it though, so wasn’t surprised when the anonymous vote was suggested. He turned to Zhengting and moved to turn them around. They would have to face their fates with eyes closed. 

In that moment, Xukun felt the old nervousness at loss of control rear its head. He knew he was good, but what if they thought Zhengting was better? What if Rui didn’t actually like him? What if Ziyi decided to be considerate again? What if?

His crossed legs twitched, waiting for their sentence. 

After a few moments, he heard an amused huff. Then: “It’s Xukun!”

He couldn’t help it. He smiled wide, then dimmed it before turning to Zhengting and tapping him in the international sign for ‘well done’. He could see Zhengting was slightly upset, but hopefully not so much that he would bring down their performance. He knew the Yue Hua guys had weekly evaluations. Dealing with rejection and setbacks was part of Zhengting’s daily existence. 

He turned and saw Rui smile, then felt his eyes instinctively move to Ziyi. He had a wide smile on his face, followed by a mouthed “Congrats, Mr. Fan Boy” and a wink. Xukun burst into another embarrassed laugh, his cheeks heating up. Ziyi just kept smiling.

“Let me put it on you”. 

Ziyi took the Centre sticker and shifted across to pin it on Xukun’s chest. Before he could do it though, Rui stepped in, muttering to the cameras about his honourable role as the eldest and leader. Ziyi simply smiled his small smile, and leaned back, not breaking his gaze. Xukun could feel it tingling, making him grin. 

This was a good start. He was the centre. He had a good team. He had a good song. He seemingly had a friend. What could go wrong?

 

///

 

He burst out of the room with Rui in tow, still grinning. They were sent to get some much needed snacks for everyone before they were set to return to the practice room, and finally hear the full version of PPAP. 

His roommate followed in his wake with a small smile, announcing he was going to tag along and help carry, as a key part of his being a leader. They hadn’t moved more than ten metres though when Rui grabbed him suddenly on his right shoulder, and dragged him to the side of the corridor. Xukun noticed they weren’t in sight of cameras, which was suspicious to say the least. In the last few days, he'd become acutely aware of just how much Rui felt he needed to be exposed to those as much as possible.

“Been meaning to tell you, Xukun. You guys really shouldn’t be so obvious”, Rui whispered, pulling the two of them close.

“What?”

“What do you mean what?” Rui was looking at him with a guarded look on his face.

“I’m sorry Rui-ge, I really don’t know what you are talking about”. Xukun felt there was a joke being told to the room at large, and somehow he was the only one not in on it. 

Rui guarded look flicked into curiosity, a small twitch of his left eyebrow prominent. Then, after a pause that somehow felt much longer than it was: “How interesting. Ok, I believe you. Be careful.”

Rui gave him a sly smile and waltzed off to the bathroom. Xukun spent a good minute staring at the spot he just left, trying to make sense of the entire conversation. It was only when Zhengting rushed out of the room to ask him about what was taking so long that he let it go, though an unsettling feeling was screaming at him that maybe he shouldn’t. A quick snack, then practice and more practice it would have to be, however. No more distractions. For now. 

 

///

 

It was the night before the group performance. 

Xukun was still burning the midnight oil in their practice room, though it was 3 am by now, and he really ought to have been in bed with the rest of them. They had all left around 1.30 am, Ziyi walking out last, shooting him a small look. He imagined it said something like ‘But what about your schedule?’, though Xukun was determined to ignore it. His newly found ability to speak Ziyi wasn’t particularly helpful right now.

Truth was, he was genuinely more frustrated than he wanted to admit, or let them see. He just couldn’t get that cutesy shtick down: his facial expressions were still awkward to the nth degree. His muscles were starting to burn. New rivers of sweat were moving down his back, replacing existing ones. He knew he was running on empty and being stupid. He wouldn’t get anything down correctly at this point. It was only his reckless stubbornness that kept him going: irritation with himself, irritation with the song, irritation with this entire thing. 

Shit.

He walked across to the speakers in the corner, and cut the music with more than necessary force, leaning against the mirrors in frustration. Why did he have to select this one? His sixth sense was normally unfailingly accurate: he could read what would sell, what the audience would scream for, what would challenge their expectations and get them on his side yet again. He knew what suited him, and what they wanted: the coloured contacts, the anything-but-subtle looks, the deceptive occasional pureness to make them want all the more. Desire incarnate, one of the trainees called him. He’d overheard it during an afternoon gossip break while walking past one of the rooms. The unseen trainee clearly meant it as ridicule, mimicking the air-piercing shrieks of theatrical teenage girls, dramatically flailing away. Xukun didn’t mind though: he had their attention, fake or real all the same. 

Not that all that mattered for this cursed song.

Shit. 

Just as he felt the corners of his eyes sting in a tell-tale sign of inevitable exasperated tears, he heard the door open with a click, and set his head down quickly. The practice room had only the spotlights on at the front – he preferred practicing that way at night. Maybe whoever it was wouldn’t see him.

He heard solid footsteps getting closer though, and tucked his head further down. Xukun didn’t really believe the cap he was wearing would hide him, but in that moment, it would at least buy him some time– if he was really lucky, just enough to slide his Kunkun face back on.

“Xukun?”

That voice. Of course. 

He could feel Ziyi’s heat settle a step away from him, and pause. 

“You ok? Hey…”

Xukun could see Ziyi’s right hand come up to his cap. In an in-the-moment distressed attempt at escape, he twisted around to face the mirrors, settling his elbows against them. 

Xukun didn’t know quite why he didn’t want Ziyi to see him like this – he knew the other boy understood. But it somehow felt like if he saw this, Ziyi would see everything. Xukun’s blood rebelled at the very thought.

“Xukun…. Talk to me”. 

All he could do was twitch his head to the side, and lower his head back down onto his elbows. He was behaving like a child, he knew. It struck him again though that he wasn’t alone in suffering the consequences of his poor song choice. If anything, Ziyi had made a valiant effort at cute, but struggled even more. His cheerful unwillingness to make that obvious to everyone else didn’t make it any less true. 

The corners of his eyes stung, and a panicked shudder went through him. He could feel anxiety – that old friend – bubbling at the pit of his stomach. Threatening to spill over, to engulf. Shit, shit, shit. 

“Xukun, can I?”

He could feel Ziyi shift behind him and reach across to slowly tug his cap off, removing it from under Xukun’s arms. Xukun felt momentarily exposed. Before he had a chance to voice his protest, he felt a light scrape of fingers in his hair, tracing from his right temple, steady and sure. The fingers shifted across slightly to the left, and repeated their settled pattern. Xukun eyes flicked closed all on their own. 

“Is it stress? Are you ok?”

Xukun was momentarily too stunned to say anything. The long fingers continued to trace their way across his scalp, blunt nails making light scrapes, strong pads pressing in every so often. Catch, release. Catch, release.

He could feel Ziyi shift closer behind him, so he could reach his left too. A scorching flutter travelled down his body with each touch. 

Ziyi kept going, adding a slightly twisting motion to the tips of Xukun’s sweat-matted hair, tugging at his roots lightly. Xukun sighed, putting more weight onto his crossed elbows on the mirror, his forehead resting against the cool glass. He could feel his muscles slowly unclench, anxiety’s starving claws letting loose, at least a tiny bit. He was blissful. This was bliss. 

Until Ziyi suddenly tugged a tiny bit stronger. Before Xukun registered it, a cracked soft moan snapped into the deafening silence of the room. Ziyi stilled immediately, his hand dropping to Xukun’s right shoulder. 

It took Xukun a frightful second to realise. That moan… it was him. 

Oh God. 

Just as overwhelming panic rose up from his gut, and a teeming blubbering apology bubbled to his lips, Ziyi shifted on his feels, and took a tiny step closer. 

“Xukun… Talk to me.”

Ziyi’s hand rose back to his nape, hesitated, then moved, slowly stretching his thumb away from the centre. Feather light. Asking. Always asking.

“Is this ok?”

After a moment of silence, those clever fingers tentatively found their way back into Xukun’s hair and pulled again, another slightly hard tug. Xukun shuddered. The next time, the tug was expected, but the reaction was not. Ziyi twisted a bit more strongly, his left hand settling on the side of Xukun’s waist. 

Xukun’s neck jerked back, floored, letting out a huff that choked and broke half way through. He could feel the cold air-conditioned air on his throat, and Ziyi’s eyes on his. He slid down his elbows, resting his hands against the glass, and finally dared to look up. 

Ziyi’s eyes in the mirror were all piercing darkness – glowing, unflinching. Xukun wanted to throw himself deep within, and never resurface again.

He could see Ziyi take another small step closer, making him almost flush against Xukun’s back. He never broke eye contact. On his end, Xukun felt he couldn’t even if he tried. 

Ziyi slinked to Xukun’s right side in a smooth shift, eyes still glued to Xukun’s, and slowly, painfully slowly, brought his lips to Xukun’s ear. Xukun swore he could feel a light stretch of Ziyi’s lips as he whispered. A low timbre. Low and low. 

“Xukun. Tell me. Is this what you want?”

His voice was steady, and firm. It was caramel and madness. In that moment, Xukun would have given him anything. Ziyi was still looking at him in the mirror, unflinching. Xukun knew there was no hiding now. He gave a small twitch of a nod, and mapped in fascination the resulting kaleidoscope in Ziyi’s eyes: from guarded, to peeled back, to devouring, to ready. 

As Xukun watched in the mirror, Ziyi’s eyes shifted to the curve of his neck, scraping gently once more with the back of his hand. His left hand lightly grasped another tuft of hair, and brought Xukun closer. He felt engulfed by the heat behind him, as Ziyi’s eyes found his in the mirror once more, and brought his lips slowly to his neck. 

One light brush. 

Xukun exhaled. 

One firmer press underneath his ear. 

One flicker of a hot tongue, followed by a hitched inhale. A small kiss on top. 

Xukun’s entire body felt aflame, a thousand imprisoned butterflies scratching and biting for release.

“Still with me?”

Ziyi’s right arm travelled back down Xukun’s chest to his waist, raising the bottom of his sweatshirt lightly, only to brush the pad of his thumb across. Ziyi’s gaze in the mirror followed his hand as it did so, with a focus that could cut through glass. Xukun was powerless to do anything but watch too. A front row seat to his own destruction. 

Ziyi’s deft fingers paused for a small second, enough to make eye contact with Xukun once more, then travelled up slowly. After an agonising few seconds, in which Xukun found himself holding a desperate breath, they finally, finally ghosted over his right nipple. Xukun exhaled sharply, and let his head fall back on Ziyi’s left shoulder with another thud. His heartbeat… Xukun felt like he was floating and drowning at the same time. 

Ziyi’s fingers traced back to the top of his sweatpants, then paused, the tip of his fingers settling a centimetre underneath. Xukun could feel himself stretch back into Ziyi slightly, chasing friction – any and all friction that Ziyi would give.

“Xukun. You have to tell me now. You have to say it.”

…

“Is this what you want?”

.... 

“Am I what you want?”.

Xukun squeezed his eyes shut, one final reprieve from what he knew was coming. He then slowly lowered his gaze back down to face Ziyi. There was nothing to say, that his frantic eyes weren’t saying already. 

Yes. 

Yes. 

Yes. 

Ziyi’s own widened slightly, then settled into something that twisted Xukun’s insides. Twisted and held. 

Ziyi paused, a final check to make sure Xukun was following, that he wanted, then moved his left hand under his sweatshirt, tracing up his torso. His right twisted under the top of his boxers. His fingers dug into his hipbone. They moved, every millimetre of skin releasing another hundred tingles, a further thousand butterflies. 

They went down. 

And down.

And…

 

///

 

Xukun snapped up with a start. The room around him was deadly silent, Rui’s usual light snoring the only familiar sound.

His sheets were bunched up against his torso, tussled and messy. His forehead felt warm, his breathing laboured, his heart pained. 

What was that??

He reached down to his boxers, and felt the weight of his erection, painful and throbbing, already on edge. The memory of the dream still felt so real. He twitched in his hand, and Xukun groaned. 

Mere minutes later, he found himself spilling into his hand with a hollow cry, alone under the blasting heat of the shower. A 4.42 am exodus from his dreams. 

The back of his neck ran scorching hot, then chilling cold. 

He could still feel the weight of another's hand on it, the imprint of piercing brown eyes deep within.


	4. Chapter 4

05:12  
Can’t sleep. Jeffrey spent half the night rolling around and mumbling about spiders and whales and tentacles and his maternal grandma? He’s been sleeping in my bunk the last two days. I think he’s freaked out about today. Did I tell you he tried to hug my foot to his chest the night before while sleeping? Awkward.

05:49  
He’s awake. We’re gonna go hit the showers, then head to practice room 3. See you there?

06:21  
Jesus Christ. The practice rooms are a mess. Everyone’s in semi-breakdown mode. Just had to sit with Qian Zhenghao in the back corridor, and talk him through breathing exercises for ten minutes to stop him from hyperventilating. The kid almost cried. Something about not knowing how to pronounce pineapple on national TV…

08:01  
It just occurred to me. You aren’t somewhere in a broom closet having a panic attack, are you? If so, you must tell me. You know I can whip out a mean EXO move and make you laugh in no time. You love my Zhang PD impression. Shameless fan boy. Shameless.

09:47  
Xukun? That was a joke, you know that, right? I would never make fun of your precious Zhang PD.

09:47  
Ok fine, I would. But only because you’re so painfully obvious.

09:49  
Xukun?

///

Shit. Double shit. 

The first text came minutes after Xukun tiptoed back into the room, and quietly threw himself on his bed, cheeks burning. A rushed walk of shame at 5 am, all the while praying nobody saw him coming out of the showers. Or saw him in the showers. What if someone actually walked in while he was there? He thought he was pretty quiet, but the way it just slammed into him… A tsunami-sized monster wave right in his plexus. Pulsing dots of white against the quicksand darkness behind his eyes. He was slumped over, barely propping himself up, head plastered against the cold shower tiles. Twitching – like it still wasn’t enough.  


He couldn’t remember coming as fast, or hard, possibly ever. In case there was any doubt, the thick streaks of pearly white on the tiles told their own story. In a growing panic, he grabbed his shower gel and rubbed, then sprayed it off, irrationally hoping it would somehow erase it. Erase what he’d done. The evidence of what he’d thought. What he’d envisioned. About a friend. Goddamn.

He could still feel the jitters at the tips of his fingers, the joints of his shoulder blades. His insides were rearranging themselves. His skin itched. He wanted to shed it all, and shut down his brain right alongside it. If only. 

He turned to reach his phone. The buzz had been light, as light as he could make it while still being able to hear. Just in case mom called in the middle of the night – a long-standing habit from his time in the US. He knew the guys were fine, but Rui was a light sleeper these days, lighter and lighter as the first performance neared. Their bunks were opposite each other, so he’d gotten used to waking up to see Rui staring up, unblinking, deep in thought. Xukun was still getting to know his roommate, but one thing was clear: no matter how carefree he seemed in front of the cameras, this was not a careless pastime to Rui. Not by a long shot.

There was also no doubt in his mind who the text was from. 

Over the last few weeks, they had spent more and more time together: fooling around after practice, going to the gym together, sneaking out for late night snacks (grapes for Xukun, disgusting octopus and lime crisps for Ziyi), not to mention being locked in for endless hours with the guys, practicing PPAP in practice room 3. He was by now intimately familiar with the scent of Ziyi’s sweat mixed with subtle oaky cologne, and the strength of his hands, which every so often wrapped themselves around his shoulders or knee with a reassuring smile and wink, while laughing at something Zhengting or someone else said. Xukun began to recognise his grins: playful when teasing Zhengting about his insistence that he wasn’t cute goddammit, light when looking at Rui, small and protective when Team B turned away after Ziyi finished helping them with choreo, abashed and deflecting when Qian Zhenghao launched into another one of his ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ fumblings.  


During this time, Ziyi left the training centre a few afternoons for an hour or so. He never explained where he went or why, and no one seemed overly eager to ask. He had a way of defecting any questions away from himself, while making you feel like you were really the one who was far more interesting anyways. Other than those hours, he was here, there and everywhere – a quiet rock, steady and true.

Ziyi had also gotten in the habit of picking Rui and him up most mornings for practice, a small coconut water in hand for Xukun, and a boba for Rui. His kindness was as it seemingly ever was: widespread, and for Xukun at least, slightly overwhelming.

Yet every so often, Xukun thought maybe he got a tiny, like a tiny tiny bit more. 

Like last Saturday, half way to their first performance. Exhausted from the twelve-hour practice sessions the entire dorm was suffering under, he decided he’d go out back and shoot hoops for an hour before bed. He’d been desperate to get out of his overanalysing head, which was running over the choreo and all his mistakes on loop like some kind of masochistic Looney Tunes. As it happened, this was also the one night the guys decided they deserved a few hours off to avoid the dorm spontaneously combusting from a combination of sweaty laundry, chronic lack of sleep, and hysteria-level anxiety. The Banana guys and Chengcheng crowned themselves the unofficial ringleaders, and ran around the dorm loudly knocking on everyone’s doors, shrieks and booming laughter trailing in their wake. By the time they arrived at their room, Xukun was already lacing up his sneakers, the basketball nested in his lap as he reached down. 

When the knock came, Rui got up off his bed with a laugh and high fived the madly grinning Yanjun on the way out to the corridor. Ziyi smiled at him from the door, his arm around a vibrating Chengcheng’s shoulders, both of them waving at him to come along. When he told them he was already set on playing some hoops and would see them tomorrow, Ziyi peeled away from Chengcheng and said in his measured voice “Cool. I haven’t played in months. Let’s see what you got, fan boy”. He then stepped into the hallway and looked back to Xukun: strong eyebrow up slightly, a ‘You coming or what?’ clear in his gaze. Xukun heard Chengcheng stumble over a “But Ziyi…”, a flash of something that looked obviously like confusion and less obviously like hurt, before Rui stepped up and turned him around by the shoulders, pulling him away. 

Xukun could see Chengcheng looking back at them as Rui continued to tug him in the direction of the front entrance. It made Xukun feel a bit guilty. If he was perfectly honest, there was a small part of him that felt a tiny bit victorious too. Chengcheng was a good kid. Xukun saw him glance across at Ziyi every so often. He knew Chengcheng admired Ziyi. Xukun shouldn’t hold that against him. But it felt good to have Ziyi’s all-encompassing attention just to himself for a little while.  


Xukun turned to Ziyi, who slapped his hand over the ball, bounced it a few times, and tucked it under his arm, muscles straining over it. “You ready?” Xukun could remember his nose scrunching lightly as he smiled, and pushed a hand through his wet hair, his razor-sharp jaw coming up too, as if to taunt him.

Jesus.

Another light buzz broke into the silence. Vibrating over his chest. Hiding under his hand.

With it came another flash of it: deep, encompassing, daunting. Blistering hot shame. 

How could he? How was he going to face Ziyi? 

They were supposed to perform that afternoon. He was due for hair and makeup in a few hours. They had planned to meet as a team beforehand. There was no way Rui wouldn’t see something was up. There was even less of a chance with Ziyi.

At 19 years old, Xukun often felt decades older. Years in the spotlight will do that to a person. He had learned responsibility and maturity, learned them the hard way. He knew what was going through his head was stupid. It was immature. It was frankly beneath him. But Xukun was damned if he was going to set one foot outside this door before he absolutely had to. No way. 

Before long, his chest vibrated again. And again. And again.

He let it.

///

“You gonna get that, or what?”

Xukun looked over to Rui’s bed, and found him staring across, a clear challenge in his eyes. Before he could recover and say something, Rui continued, a steam train powering straight in his direction.

“I’ve been awake for a while. At first, I thought maybe you didn’t notice the texts, or it wasn’t important. But from the way you keep tensing every single time another one comes, I’m guessing it’s someone you don’t wanna talk to. The problem is there’s only one person who texts you as much as this. And that one person is normally the first one to get a reply. Within seconds. I know it, you know it, at this point the entire crew of the show and their families know it. He knows it too. So what gives, pretty boy? Trouble in paradise?”

Xukun should have known better than to assume his roommate somehow wouldn’t be the first to clock this. His ge was kind yes, and gentle, but also fiercely smart and surprisingly direct when not on camera. It was a bad combination given his present circumstance.

“Ah no, ge, everything is fine.”

“Bullshit. Wanna try that again?,” Rui barked out while grunting up to face him, legs crossing in front of him on the bed. 

“Really ge, I’m just… I’m feeling nervous. You know, today’s the first performance. I don’t want to get distracted and let you all down. I’ll talk to him later,” Xukun rushed out with a twinge of desperation he was praying Rui wouldn’t detect.

Fat luck.

“Yeah right. So it is Ziyi? Honestly Xukun, while as your ge I would be the last person to want you to feel nervous, or tell you it’s not ok for you to feel off, I know you a bit by now. This isn’t the Xukun who’s nervous before performances. You are jittery. I didn’t think the great Xukun got jittery, ever. Not like this. And while I appreciate we’re going to see each other later at the team meeting, you and Ziyi are basically a package deal these days. You’ve spent twelve hours together for the last week, every day. When you aren’t together, you are texting each other stupid memes of pineapples, and little red panda videos. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your 1 am giggling, Xukun. Ignoring his texts? You? Something’s up, and it’s my ge duty to get to the bottom of it, especially on performance day. We’re alone. The guys left to meet their groups an hour ago, not that you noticed in the depths of your wallowing. It’s me, Xukun. Try again.” 

Damn his perceptive roommate. Why did Xukun think having friends was a good idea? He should have ignored everyone, like he did the last time around. Not that it made for a good show experience personally speaking, but he was here to work and win, not socialise. Why did he decide that this time around, he would let down some of those walls? Why?

Rui kept staring at him, his right hand coming up to prop up his chin, a calm expression settling onto his face. As seconds went by, he simply raised one eyebrow, as if to say he was happy to wait him out as long as it took. Xukun didn’t doubt his ge’s stubbornness. There was no way out of this.

“Ah… I don’t know. I… I don’t know, ge. I’ve been thinking. I mean, Ziyi is a great friend and everything, but we are here to work, no? It’s important to keep a professional distance. That’s all.”

Rui just lifted the other eyebrow, and let it down after a second. His expression didn’t change. 

Ok.

“It’s just… I don’t know… I mean... I feel a bit... uncomfortable, I guess?,” Xukun stuttered out, ending on a high wince. This was not going well. 

Rui straightened up immediately, his normally warm eyes boring into Xukun’s. 

“What do you mean uncomfortable? Has he said something to you? Insult you in some way? I cannot imagine how or why he would, but maybe he didn’t mean to? When did this even happen? You guys were fine last night at practice.”

Rui’s questions were serious, his worry seeping through. Xukun felt a small smile tug at his lips. He knew all this talk of distance didn’t matter – his ge cared, and here was further proof.

“No, no. No. Not like that.”

Xukun looked back down at his hands, willing them to stop nervously twitching in his lap. He could feel Rui’s gaze on his temple. 

“Is it because he’s been hugging and touching you quite a bit recently? Is it because he’s a guy?” Rui’s questions came fast, and carried a hint of something, a hardness that wasn’t there moments before.

“No.”

Rui remained silent, the space between their beds suddenly appearing wider than ever.

“Definitely, Rui-ge. No. I’m… I’m sure.”

Xukun’s brain momentary transported him to the east wing bathroom in his California high school, and that first time that Ricky, a forever smiling green-eyed sophomore from his chem class, looked him in the eyes and asked if he wanted to try the eyeliner he was in the middle of applying. He obviously spotted Xukun staring at him in the mirror as Xukun came out of the stalls. Before Xukun could look away abashed, embarrassed to be caught staring in an otherwise empty bathroom, Ricky laughed his booming laugh, waved it away as if no big deal, and fluttered his fingers at him to come over. Xukun still remembered the gentle fingertips at the side of his eyelids, the oddness of being touched by a practical stranger, the bop to his nose at the end. He remembered the proud look Ricky gave him, as Xukun admired his new look, all shadows and depth that were never there before. It was his first time wearing make-up. How could he forget it, or forget the small step Ricky took toward him. The smooth touch to his jaw, the small pause while he checked if this was ok, and the soft pull on Xukun’s lower lip that came seconds later, followed by a flick of a tongue, followed by more. The kiss was like warm milk: soothing, and gone far too quickly. 

After that Tuesday afternoon, he would occasionally see Ricky in the corridors, or outside, lounging on the benches in the sunshine surrounded by his gaggle of loud friends. Their eyes would catch and they’d share a small smile. Xukun would spend the rest of his time in California getting acquainted with other lips and body parts in other bathrooms – something his mother surely didn’t have in mind when she insisted a California education would be good for his English and his career. The fact that the rest of those belonged to girls was, before long, irrelevant. The small rush was the same. California taught him that was all that really mattered, no matter what anyone said or thought, including at home.

Xukun could see Rui’s shoulders sag down a tiny bit.

“Ok, so what’s the matter then?”

And wasn’t that the question. 

“Really ge. I appreciate this, I do. I know you are being kind and I really am grateful. You are the best. I’ll figure it out, I know I will. I just need some space to think it through. I just… I really don’t want to talk about it right now. Or talk to Ziyi. Can you let me?,” Xukun looked over with a pleading look in his eyes. Fuck looking composed in front of his ge at this stage.

He knew if his ge insisted, if he asked one more time, the flood of jumbled emotions sloshing under the surface would come tumbling out. Xukun wasn’t sure what words would come out alongside them. He wasn’t sure he wanted Rui to hear them. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear them either.

Rui’s gaze remained fixed on Xukun, as if he was calculating something. After a few tense moments, during which Xukun’s knee joined his hands in twitching uncontrollably, Xukun could see something shift in his eyes. Rui looked away, sighed, then turned his eyes back to Xukun. Xukun saw the gentleness there, and felt a rush of gratitude for his fierce gege.

“Ok Xukun. You don’t have to tell me. I have a feeling this doesn’t come to you easily anyways, does it?”

Xukun nodded. Talking about his feelings was very much one of the areas he wasn’t Kunkun the superstar in.

“Ok. Do you need me to say something to Ziyi?”

Xukun could see that the question was genuine, and was again taken aback by just how nice it was to know another person would do that for him. Even if they didn’t know that even the idea of someone playing interference of this kind was the only silver lining Xukun could see on his otherwise dreary horizon. Today would not be a good day. He needed to snap out of it, and focus.

“No, thank you ge. I’ll be fine. I’ll go grab breakfast real quick. By the time you’ve showered, I’ll be good as new. You don’t have to worry about today’s performance,” Xukun said with a smile that just about reached his eyes. Maybe.

“It’s not today’s performance I’m worried about, Xukun,” Rui said with a guff, before rushing to add, “But you’re right. You said leave it alone, so I’ll be a good ge and leave it alone. Get some good protein into you, and make sure you hydrate. I’ll see you in half an hour. We can walk across to the group meeting together”.

Rui got up off his desk, and shuffled to the closet to grab his shower stuff, before closing the door gently behind him. He didn’t look at Xukun, for which Xukun was grateful. He could see from his back that Rui was still tense over their conversation. But his ge had given him an out, and Xukun would use it. 

One conversation down, twelve hours of avoidance and focusing on the big prize to go. 

Here goes nothing. 

///

The next twelve hours were the probably the most cringing of his career so far, and that included some of the outfits he was forced to wear while in SWIN, and his first acting experience. Really. 

Rui had helped him cobble together an excuse during their team pre-meeting about being super tired, when it became clear from his stuttering that Xukun was no longer capable of speaking full sentences to Ziyi. It took everything in him not to flinch when Ziyi put a gentle hand over his shoulders and quietly asked him if he was ok. The smile Xukun shot in his direction before nodding and stepping away was painful. From his small frown, it seemed Ziyi got a tinge of that as well.

Thankfully, Zhengting and Rui took over as the power squad, Zhengting giving everyone small pep talks, and Rui running them through one final walk through, making sure their heads were in the right place. It distracted Ziyi enough to step away from Xukun, which in turn made it easier for Xukun to concentrate. This was a big day. He was the centre. It was what he was made to do.

Hair and make-up offered a welcome escape, as everyone got pulled in different corners of the massive hangar for prep. Wardrobe was a mess – hundreds of people running around with pins, folders, photo boards, lighting for photographers who were trailing through and recording for the website, everyone else tripping over their cables be damned. Xukun’s shirt managed to rip, and his cordi pulled him across to a different section, muttering about teenage boys and elbows. He was grateful.  


All seemed well until they were dragged to the backstage viewing room, and the producers placed him right at the centre, a dozen cameras in his face. The seat next to him remained free, and Xukun really should have known. A minute before filming started, he heard a rush of footsteps, and a running Ziyi launched himself into the seat, catching Xukun’s eyes before planting himself down. The coordi rushed to fix his hair seconds before filming started, whispering to him he had to stop going last.

Xukun sat at the corner of his chair, his knee twitching away. The rich oaky perfume that trailed Ziyi was everywhere around him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he was still replaying the subtle makeup around Ziyi’s almond eyes, the slicked back hair emphasising his strong face, the wide shoulders in that blazer, the hint of strong collarbones peeking through, the way his long legs filled out those jeans. He could see them stretch out to his left as Ziyi got comfortable, as if taunting him. Shit.  


Ziyi seemed to feel something was up, and strangely left him alone. Xukun could see the camera pan out to the two of them, and wondered how much their tense faces made for bad television at home. What would his IKUNs think? He really needed to get a grip.

The next half an hour passed in a tense pretend participation, with both Ziyi and him engaging with the show, but very much not with each other. He was about to launch into an internal scream with nerves when thankfully, the PDs signalled for their team to get ready. He could feel Rui’s hand at his back, a gentle tap to guide him to the backstage. Rui caught his eyes, and smiled his winning smile, whispering “Go, KunKun”. That dork. Xukun gave him a small smile of appreciation in turn, knowing full well why his roommate had done it.

He could feel Ziyi line up next to him, then lean over to whisper quietly “Good luck, Xukun”. Xukun just nodded, and turned to everyone as Rui got them to huddle together one last time before setting foot on stage. And then they were off. 

The overwhelming hype of the stage was the welcome distraction he needed. He still hated the song, but damn it if he wouldn’t dance and sing the hell out of it. He could see the screaming fans, and feel their energy in the soles of his feet, propelling him forward. This was it. This right there. 

They rushed off stage in a tangle of silent screams, which turned into real ones as the five of them ran into the backstage. Xukun grinned at their thrilled faces, Zhengting practically crying in relief, Rui looking at them with pure pride in his eyes. 

The PDs took them away before they could even orient themselves. The results came before they could blink. A rock lodged itself in his throat, then expelled with a thundering whoosh as he saw he had won against Team B. They had won. Stupid PPAP did not sink their boat, or make Xukun fail his teammates. They were through. This had to count for something. 

As it turned out, he had thought too soon. It wasn’t like Xukun to get complacent or forget this was a competition. This is why when it was announced that following the audience votes, he was 9th – ninth! – his heart tugged, then sank. He could see Rui look over at him with a worried glance, and feel Ziyi’s gaze on him. Xukun could just look down. This was bad. Ninth was not where he belonged. He knew there was public voting still to come before the first rank announcement in a couple weeks’ time, but he also knew that he had to stop being distracted. His IKUNs wouldn’t carry this for him. 

Yes, PPAP was the devil. Yes, he couldn’t do cute to save his life. But this thing with Ziyi was taking him away from something he’d worked years to achieve. Years to get a chance at achieving. He wouldn’t waste it, not for a warm smile, not for that face, not for all the tingles and all the butterflies. 

Once the results announcement was done and Zhang PD left, Xukun marched himself toward Linong to congratulate him, leaving his team behind. 

A few minutes later, just as Linong and he settled onto the floor to chat about what would happen next, he felt that familiar warmth to his right. Rui soon made his way near him as well, to comfort one of the Yue Hua kids alongside Zhengting. His gege was a good gege, not just to him.

Xukun knew this was getting painfully obvious, but he couldn’t help it: he kept his eyes on Linong and the guys who joined him, following their conversation, all the while resolutely avoiding looking to his right. He knew Ziyi was no fool, and that this was so out of character than he’d caught even the trainees he’d never spoken to before giving them strange looks during the day. 

But whatever this was that Xukun was feeling, whatever made that dream last night happen, Xukun had no interest in bringing it out into the open. It could stay where it belonged: in the darkness of his bedroom, in the early morning hours, tucked away with only Xukun to anxiously prod at it until he could make it go away. 

And make it go away he would. 

After a few minutes, he could feel the heat peel away from him, as if Ziyi detached himself from his skin. He saw Ziyi walking away to comfort some of the kids who lived on his floor. He didn’t say a word. 

Xukun wasn’t the smartest these days, but he recognised a break when he was given one. 

He waited a minute, then checking Ziyi’s back was turned, said a quick bye to Linong and rushed off stage. 

He was an adult. He would deal with this. He just needed some more time. Some more space. 

And less Ziyi.

///

The door of the bathroom slammed open, then closed. Xukun could hear the angry steps bounding across to Xukun’s shower stall, then abruptly stop outside. He would know the sound of those anywhere.

“Xukun. I know you’re in there. Get out. I need to talk to you.”

Oh boy. Xukun pitched his eyes closed, and took a deep breath. He knew Ziyi wouldn’t normally march in like this, but given the last few hours, he wasn’t sure today wasn’t the day he’d be proven wrong for once when Ziyi was concerned.

Xukun tugged his t-shirt nervously across the top of his sweatpants, ran his fingers through his hair, and took a deep breath. He could do this. The shower was brief – a glorious fifteen minutes of silence and escape – but it recharged him, at least a little bit. 

He pulled the stall door open, and stepped outside. Ziyi was standing a metre away, his entire body buzzing. 

“Xukun. You’ve been avoiding me. All day. I want to know why.”

The look in Ziyi’s eyes was tense, and his voice firm, laced with something that came close to anger – as close as Xukun had ever seen in the other boy. It was clear Ziyi wasn’t going to let this go. 

This was not good. This was not good at all.


	5. Chapter 5

The producers had again sat them next to each other to watch the first team performances. Ziyi was the last to rush through from prep, shown to his place in front of the big screen by one of the junior assistants, her stress and frustration obvious. His eyes barely had time to register Xukun’s tucked in shirt. The smoky make up making his eyes pop. The pulled back hair showing off that glorious face, all sharp lines and curved soft surfaces. That didn’t mean he didn’t immediately start rewinding them in his head, slowly, in photographic detail. Over and over again. Like a painfully familiar song, whose rhythms and traces he was, by now, very well acquainted with. 

He could feel Xukun’s jitters through the floor, his chair shaking lightly with each nervous tap of his left foot. Ziyi desperately wanted to reach out, and set a hand on that knee. Squeeze. Comfort. He didn’t know if that was for Xukun’s benefit, or his own.

Did he still have that right though?

Xukun had been avoiding him since this morning; that much was obvious. No answer to his texts. Barely a glance in his direction during the team pre-meeting. Practically a mad dash away from him as soon as the hair and make-up call was made. He was sure his quiet “Are you ok, Xukun?” was normal – as normal as all the other times he’d asked. There was no reason for Xukun to know, no reason for him to suspect. 

Unless Ziyi made a cardinal error, and let it show somehow. 

Was it a hug that lingered too long? Did someone say something? Was it Ziyi’s blatant inability to stay away from him for more than an hour? The fact that Ziyi could see his own fingers flickering in his lap, held back from reaching across to Xukun’s knee with only the power of Ziyi’s long-fought for patience?

Be careful, Ziyi. Be careful now.

It was one thing to tell himself that. 

It was another to stand face to face with Cai Xukun for weeks, hours on end, and hear him burst out into his awkward giggle for the thirtieth time, covering himself with his arms in utter embarrassment. See those plump lips that glistened like fresh honey half the time, and made him twitch, all over. The floating tufts of fine hair Ziyi had an ever-present urge to run his fingers through, to ruin all that hairspray until nothing else was left. The eyes that were as haunting behind Ziyi’s eyelids at bedtime when they were blue and rimmed with eye shadow, as when they settled on him all blurry and pained during 1 am practice runs. The tiny waist he helped tuck Xukun’s shirt into during dress rehearsal the other day, pads of his fingers floating across Xukun’s skin for a dizzying moment. The smell that constantly trailed in Xukun’s wake, setting Ziyi on edge with every brush against each other, accidental or otherwise: pepper and juniper, vanilla and sunshine. Sharp and sweet.

It was another thing not to want.

Ziyi was never a good liar, to himself especially. 

He wanted. He was selfish. He had questions – more and more every day.

But the truth was: he was also increasingly sure.

He was sure that no matter what, he had experienced enough in his 21 years to know some things you don’t let go of. Some things you don’t not tell, waiting until it was too late. 

He had done it once. He’d never make the same mistake again. 

Whatever was bothering Xukun would have to come out. Ziyi would make sure of it, one way or another. He just had to bide his time.

His time would come.


	6. Chapter 6

“Xukun.”

The anger was still there, a steady undercurrent in Ziyi’s eyes. He was looking at Xukun, as sure and immovable as ever. 

“Ziyi. What are you doing here?” 

Xukun tried deflection. It might just work. If he’s lucky.

“Really, Xukun?” 

Or not.

Sarcasm was beyond Ziyi, but disappointment wasn’t. Xukun could swear Ziyi’s voice carried a hint of it, just enough to spur him into a mild panic.

“I was tired from the performance, and the scoring, and just from today. I slept really badly last night. You know I’ve been sleeping badly for weeks. Really, Ziyi. I just needed a hot shower and some time for myself away from the cameras. You know how it is.” 

Xukun thought the shrug he gave may have been overblown, but under the strength of Ziyi’s gaze, he’d try anything and everything he could think of.

“I understand that, Xukun. I really do. What I don’t understand is why you seem to be tired of me too.”

A quiet disappointment was definitely there. Xukun looked down. He could feel the prodding on his nape, Ziyi’s eyes wanting in. What could he give them?

The silence stretched. 

Ziyi took a small step toward him, then stopped abruptly. Xukun could sense him still himself once again, like he was trying desperately not to move.

“Please, Xukun. Just tell me the truth. It’s me.”

That was the issue. 

This was Ziyi. What could Xukun tell him that the other wouldn’t already know?

Another silence. Xukun was feeling the pinpricks. The fire being stoked. Dragging him to the edge.

He just had to rip the band-aid off. There was no other way. 

He raised his head slowly, and willed himself to look into Ziyi’s eyes.

“It’s not that I’m tired of you, Ziyi. You’re my friend. But… but today reminded me this was a competition. I had a plan, Ziyi. I have a plan. I have to concentrate. You know how much this means to me, you know the pressure. I can’t have another day like today. I’m not saying let’s not be friends. I’m not saying you’re not terrific. I’m just saying I need to focus, that’s all.”

With every word he spoke, Ziyi’s eyes seemed to withdraw themselves further, slowly shutting down, until nothing but a shiny surface remained, Xukun’s face mirroring inside them. His right hand twitched, once, then twice. Otherwise, Ziyi remained still. Like a proverbial rock that he was. 

Ziyi opened his mouth, and slowly pushed out.

“Does that mean you don’t want to hang out any more?”

The tone was steady, the way icebergs were steady. Deceptively clear and white, until you got close.

Xukun exhaled, willing the jitters in his legs to go away. 

“No. No, yes. I mean… I need to focus, Ziyi. Really. I love hanging out with you, but maybe we can do more of it when the show ends? Like, obviously we need to still work together on stuff for the show, and I don’t mean I’d suddenly ignore you or anything. We’re friends. You’re great. I want to work with you. I just want to give it my best, and to do that, I need my head to be entirely in one place. I can’t get distracted. You know that.”

“Distracted…,” Ziyi muttered softly, his gaze dropping down to his feet, his right hand twitching away. 

The silence roared in Xukun’s ears. 

After a pregnant ten seconds, in which Xukun was certain his heart would explode, Ziyi drew a sharp breath and looked up. His eyes were open and clear. Xukun could see that whatever Ziyi would ask, it was real, and it was true.

“Are you sure this is what you want? Space? From me?”

Whoosh. 

Xukun’s heart was thumping away, threatening to jump out. He could feel the force of Ziyi’s examination, his eyes focused on Xukun’s face as if Ziyi wanted to make sure he didn’t accidentally blink and miss it. As if Xukun was something to miss.

Ziyi deserved better than this.

“Yes. Yes please, Ziyi”. Xukun forced his voice away from a quiver, injecting instead all the truth he could muster. This was what was right. This was what he needed to do.

Ziyi looked at him for a few seconds more, as if to make sure this was really happening, then gave a small smile that gripped Xukun’s lungs, and held. 

“If that’s what you want, Xukun, of course. Of course...  
I’ll see you around.”

Before Xukun could move, before he could do anything, Ziyi flashed him another microscopic smile that just barely tugged at the right corner of his lips, then looked away. His long legs took him to the door while Xukun stood there, blinking stupidly. Ziyi slowly closed the door behind him. 

The small click echoed in the empty bathroom. 

It was the sound of freedom. It was the sound of defeat. 

///

The next few weeks passed in a blur. The rank announcement happened, Xukun’s throat clinched in a spasm until the result was announced. The planet tilted itself back on its axis, and Xukun was once again in first place. All was right with his world.

He walked up to the first place seat at the top, hugging the elated Rui, hitting the grinning Justin on the back. Ziyi gave him a polite “Jiayo” and a pat on the shoulder, then looked away. 

It hurt.

Xukun occasionally found an empty boba container in Rui’s trash can. Ziyi was still bringing those around, it seemed, just not anywhere near him. His trash can remained resolutely free of empty coconut water bottles.

The concept evaluation came faster than any of them expected.

He’d just gotten used to a new normal of early mornings with Rui, practicing with the Gramarie guys most afternoons, his staff meetings offsite to plan endorsements, and contracts, and appearances. His run-ins with Ziyi consisted mostly of rushed hellos in the canteen during meals, and a few waves in each other’s direction when Xukun passed by Ziyi’s practices with others, most often the Yue Hua guys. Throughout, Ziyi remained warm, steady, unfailingly polite. It felt like the falsest true thing Xukun could imagine.

Finding himself standing in front of the rows of guys as the cameras rolled for the evaluation song choice meant that his focus needed to be back where it should be: on charming Zhang PD and millions of IKUNs, old and new, who’d be watching him before long. 

If nothing else, the last few weeks brought a return to the usual for Xukun: he felt his show persona dust itself off, and settle in, like a long-lost friend coming home. All of this was business, and business he could do.

But then Zhang PD decided to throw him an unexpected curve ball, and asked him who he least wanted to work with during the concept elimination round.  


He could sense the eyes on his back, and the quiet hush that fell over everyone. He was painfully aware that despite his own focus, the guys managed to spare just enough of theirs away from practices to keep the gossip mill running. He knew Ziyi and his sudden distance was a topic of conversation, least of all because Rui kept him up to date. Xukun suspected it was an effort to break him down somewhat, given Rui’s genuine outrage when Xukun muttered out the story of what happened in the bathroom that day. He recognised Rui was trying to be a good gege and understand when he stopped interrogating him over it. But Rui also never avoided reporting via Zhengting that Ziyi was getting asked about them too, though he’d change the subject each time, as if it was no big deal at all. When Xukun just hmmed at him, Rui would look at him with those knowing eyes of his, then drop it, a small shake of his head each time. 

It’s not like Ziyi and he didn’t see each other, or they acted weird with each other. It was fine. 

In that moment though, he remembered the guarded look Ziyi gave him this morning, followed by a small nod. The whole thing screamed retreat, like Ziyi had already given up on the idea that this renegotiated friendship of theirs was anything real, anything true. 

Xukun felt an urge to say something, to make it at least a little bit better. He owed him that much. But he had to make it look good too. He knew others were staring, straining to hear from the back. He knew this weird tension between them was being dissected, yet again, courtesy of Zhang PD’s script. It was his job to make it natural, like there was nothing wrong. There wasn’t. 

“The person who I least want to encounter… For example, Ziyi.”

Xukun turned in his direction, and saw just the end of Ziyi’s flinch, like Ziyi’s name alone in Xukun’s mouth was a taste Ziyi could do without. He felt Chengcheng tense behind him, a wall of nervous energy boring at his back. 

Xukun willed his smile to stay plastered on his face, and rolled on. He could do this.

“He’s a person I want to meet, but also don’t want to meet. That is, I want to work with him, but I am also scared we will have to compete. It’s like that…”

He glanced back at Ziyi, and saw his face had rearranged himself into his usual on-camera mask: calm, collected, reasonable. Unflappable and unmoved. Of course: this was Ziyi. Who was Xukun to disturb that peace?

He tore his gaze away, and fixed it onto Zhang PD. He was being given precious camera time, and interaction shots with the great Zhang PD. The PD who was looking at him kindly, and Xukun secretly suspected was favouring him a bit as well. Their fumbling (on Xukun’s end) flirting would surely make his IKUNs shriek at home. 

Head in the game, Xukun.

Look nervous. Smile at Zhang PD. Keep up the playfulness. Make it good.

He made his choice, whispering it in Zhang PD’s ear before walking across to the selection area, then played around with Linong and Chengcheng for the cameras. He could see the crew smiling along, and knew things were going as they should. He welcomed Justin and Bu Fan. Before Ziyi even stepped onto the stage, Xukun knew he would choose Papillon too. And choose it he did. 

Cameras, Xukun, cameras. 

Xukun reached across and greeted him, then watched as Ziyi gave him that sweet smile of his, the smile that left no doubt that Ziyi felt happy to be there, doing this, with him. 

Xukun had to look away, and pretend to play around with the song plaque, simply to give himself something to do. Something other than grin manically back at Ziyi, or break down into floods of tears over the last few weeks.

Over the fact that despite all that, all the shit he’d been pulling, Ziyi could still look at him exactly the same.

///

Song selection over, they dispersed to the dorms, agreeing to meet the next morning for their first recorded team meeting. They received strict instructions not to discuss anything about the evaluation tonight. The PDs wanted to make sure that any drama that went on in front of the cameras was fresh for the audiences at home. Xukun was too tired to do anything but comply.

The next morning, three cameras faced them as they settled onto the floor of Practice Room 5 to decide the centre and the lead. Xukun knew he needed to appear humble at this point, especially given he ranked first last time. Looking greedy was not on – he was Kunkun. 

So he gathered his wits, steadied his breathing, and launched into a speech he’d practiced on the way over about the importance of choosing who they see fit for the centre, and for the leader. Before he managed to recite out the speech as planned though, Ziyi voted for him as leader with a smile, coming hot on the heels of the hilariously booming Bu Fan, whose enthusiastic first endorsement Xukun could see cracking up the assistant director in his periphery. 

Oh well. This was something new, but it would show another side of him, and it felt right. Not too prominent, not too hidden. He could work with this. 

Ziyi raised himself on his knees and reached across to pin the leader badge on his chest, his long fingers holding Xukun’s sweatshirt centimetres away from his heart. As he leaned in, Xukun inhaled a whiff of that perfume again, all dizzying heat. It was the closest Ziyi had been in days, in weeks. 

Xukun’s throat was a desert. 

The AD yelled cut and told them to break for lunch, before returning to pick the centre in the afternoon. Something about a sudden bout of flu, and replacement staff being brought in. Xukun waved the three of them out, promising he would catch up to them. He fumbled for his water bottle. His throat heaved, cold water grating its way across it like sandpaper. 

That afternoon, they were back in PR5, picking the centre. 

Xukun thought about it over his rushed lunch with Rui. He knew he had to give a choice to the others. He wasn’t sure what Ziyi would do. He knew Justin wanted it. Maybe Bu Fan did too? He couldn’t be seen to be biased, especially as the rest of the guys still weren’t entirely sure what was up with him and Ziyi. 

When he settled in next to Ziyi on the floor and announced they should just say if they wanted the position, it seemed like the right thing. 

Ziyi looked at him with a small smile, before putting his head down and lifting his hand. He wanted centre too. Xukun’s heart gave a painful thump. How was he supposed to be neutral now? 

Thankfully, Bu Fan gave him an out, blurting out that Xukun was a good guy for giving away the centre position like this. Xukun could legitimately use this to deflect the attention away from the centre choice and his role in it, and get back into making the filming look good. When the others suggested a vote, and though a small part of him screamed that this was a mistake, he couldn’t help himself. His raised his hand for Ziyi. 

Yes, it made for better television, but damn it, it was also what he wanted for him. Regardless of this ocean of awkwardness the two of them were swimming around, he’d seen Ziyi work, hours and hours on top of hours and hours he spent working with others. Justin was good, but he was a kid wanting to prove himself to his Yue Hua brothers. The song suited Ziyi better. It was apparent to everyone there. 

Not to mention if anyone deserved this, it was Ziyi. He had to know Xukun knew that, thought that – then and still.

But then Ziyi went and did a Ziyi. In that infuriatingly steady voice, he turned to Justin and confessed that while he’d like to be the centre, they should just really choose whoever is better for the song. Right in front of the cameras. Selfless as always. Foolish as ever. 

Xukun’s heart dipped. Then plummeted.

Seconds later, he could feel Ziyi rise up next to him. He reached to grab the centre badge off the floor with sure hands, and passed it onto Justin, whose cheeks were getting redder and redder. 

“I think it’s ok. Justin should do it”.

Xukun was infinitely grateful for the hat on his head, which was hiding his eyes a tiny bit. Just enough for everyone else not to see the flash of fury as he realised what Ziyi had done. 

Why was he doing this? He was the better centre. Did he want to go home?

He could hear Justin stutter a weak protest about them having to compete for the position, fair and square, but Ziyi powered right on over him. 

“No, it’s fine. We are a team anyway. I think it’s all ok, really”.

Xukun knew that small smile of his was surely plastered all over his face: open, comforting, reassuring. Justin looked like he couldn’t believe his luck. 

“Really??”

Justin’s voice was small, and hopeful. Xukun could barely stand it.

“Really”. 

Xukun could sense Ziyi’s nod to his right, the feeling of perfect calm pulsing steadily outward. With all his show experience behind him, Xukun knew what Ziyi had done, even if Justin had not a single clue. And he was powerless to stop him.

He could feel the shards of quiet rage pulsing in his blood, threatening to cut and maim. But he was aware that any protests at this stage, especially on camera, were unacceptable. 

He was leader, and he needed to act like one. 

He moved to pin the centre badge on Justin, the kid vibrating with excitement. Justin then launched himself at Ziyi for an awkward hug, looking dazed at having found himself unexpectedly in a dream. A dream that was equally, if not rightly, someone else’s to live in.

Ziyi clapped. 

Damn him. 

Damn him and his stupid selflessness. His unflappable certainty. His even more annoying maturity. 

Damn him to hell.

///

The next day, as nerve-wracking as it was to rap in front of the original performer of Papillon, their practice with Jackson went well. Xukun’s own feedback was fair, but Ziyi knocked his rap out of the park. 

Jackson was seriously impressed. 

Xukun could see the tips of Ziyi’s ears tint with pink, his eyes dipping low for a second, then returning. Xukun wished he didn’t recognise the nervous happiness and shy hopefulness behind that measured façade, but he did. Despite Ziyi keeping himself at a distance from him, just like Xukun wanted.

In that moment, Xukun felt a deep rush of joy for Ziyi, more than with any feedback he’d received so far. He chose not to examine too closely why that might be. He barely stopped himself from reaching out for Ziyi’s sleeve and grabbing him in a hug. 

While the three of them did ok though, Justin crashed and burned. The stricken look on his face reminded Xukun of his own during the early days of Super Idol, back when harsh criticism still clung to his skin, instead of washing off each evening. He patted Justin on the back, and quietly promised him they could talk later, if he wanted any help.

As it turned out though, it was Ziyi Justin sought out, and Ziyi who spent the next few days in different practice rooms with the kid. Xukun saw them sitting and talking quietly in corridors, or going through choreo together one last time before group practice. All the while willing himself not to care. 

Before long though, like a sunflower, Justin began to gravitate toward Ziyi, another fan boy under his spell. Occasional run-ins became unavoidable presences: try as he might, Xukun couldn’t avoid seeing Chengcheng and Justin follow Ziyi around in-between their practices. He walked past them on the way to the bathroom in the evenings, the two Yue Hua kids crashing in Ziyi’s room with the door open, a mountain of snacks they bought from the vending machines cluttering the foot of his bed while they piled around him. He overheard their occasional laughter early in the mornings in Practice Room 3, while making his way back from his solo practice in Practice Room 1. He saw their playful bickering around the amused Ziyi over lunch.

He didn’t feel envious. Not at all.

///

Performance day was another communal slap in their faces: hard, fast, and there before they knew it.

Xukun gathered his team that morning for a final run through, then rushed them off to hair and make up, making sure they were following the script the PDs shared with him the night before. Before he could blink, they were lining up in the backstage, ready to step on. Xukun could see Justin’s nerves, Bu Fan’s steady jitters, Ziyi’s small looks to the side. He reached out to each of them for a quick hug, words of encouragement spilling over. Ziyi stood furthest away from him, and squeezed Xukun’s neck lightly before stepping back. 

For one frightening second, feeling that close to Ziyi for the first time in weeks, Xukun wanted to bury his face in his neck, and never let go. Then he heard the voiceover announcement, and the shrieks that pierced the air, announcing their arrival to the stage.

Their performance went by in another swell of adrenalin, Xukun’s body on auto-pilot, loving every second. When the music finally cut, he could see the others breathing hard, manic grins on each one of their faces, Ziyi’s too. He felt a hard twist of affection deep inside his bones. They were his team. They did well.  


Then the results came out, like an unsuspected ice-cold bucket of water in his face. Ziyi was ranked 4th. Fourth. The last one of the four of them. 

Ziyi, who stayed to practice his choreo long after the rest left, even Xukun. Who Xukun saw in corners, quietly rapping away to himself, before Chengcheng and Justin found him and distracted him away yet again. He always had a smile for them; he always had time for everyone. 

And now this.

Xukun couldn’t help but look over at Ziyi, or feel his insides clench at Ziyi clapping away, smiling at Justin, reassuring him like his own score was somehow something to reassure the other about. This just wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. 

When he reached out to him across Bu Fan, Ziyi’s pat on Xukun’s hand was barely there, his eyes briefly centred somewhere near Xukun’s left cheek. 

The scoreboard showed Justin in first place.

Ziyi hugged the kid hard, a fierce congratulations in his ear, then left straight after, citing a desperate need to go to the bathroom. Justin trailed behind him, running to catch up, leaving Bu Fan and Xukun to make their way to the result announcements in the big amphitheatre. Xukun saw Ziyi there, Chengcheng and Justin lingering by his side, prattling on about something. Ziyi’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. 

Xukun spent the rest of the results announcement fidgeting next to a worried Rui, glancing over every so often at Ziyi. 

Ziyi, who resolutely didn’t look anywhere near his part of the stage. 

///

“Ziyi! Wait up!”

As he panted out Ziyi’s name, Xukun experienced a momentary flash back to that first performance, a smiling Ziyi calling out to him in the back stage, holding him back from leaving, extending a hand. That smile, like the sun and the moon all in one. It seemed like a different lifetime. His heart tugged.

He was winded by the time he reached Ziyi, who was already half way back to the dorms, having slipped out the moment the results announcement was completed. If Rui hadn’t spotted Ziyi weaving his way in between rows of trainees toward the exit, and told Xukun, who knows whether Xukun would have even known where to find him. Especially given that the Ziyi who stood in front of him was looking like being found was the very last thing on his list right now.

The stare Ziyi gave him was long, steady and unflinching, before he sighed, as if resigned to his fate. He waited in silence, shoulders hunched forward. Xukun would have to go first. 

“Are you ok?”

Jesus. He couldn’t think of anything better to say? But then again, this was really all Xukun wanted to know. Was he ok? 

Wasn’t it time that Xukun asked him for once?

“I’m fine Xukun. Thank you for asking. Congratulations again on today.”

Thank you for asking. Congratulations. 

Like they were strangers. 

As they kept standing there, words nowhere to be found, Xukun could almost see the invisible barrier creeping up in between them. A spider’s web he never noticed being woven around him, only to find himself smack in the middle of it, tangled up, pinned down, overcome. 

He felt bile rising up in his throat, bitter and cruel. 

“Ziyi!”

The high-pitched shout came out of nowhere, as Xukun was stuck desperately raking his brain to figure out what to say next. An exuberant Chengcheng ran up to Ziyi seconds later. 

“Oh, hello Xukun-ge. Did you see, Ziyi-ge?! I got over 150,000 votes! I can’t believe it. Can you believe it?? I still can’t believe your score though, gege. Are they blind? You were brilliant, truly. Everyone said. I don’t care what they think. Who cares? I know you were brilliant, Justin knows, you must know too. We have to go celebrate. My treat. Do you wanna go to the mart and get some of those awful crisps of yours? I promise to buy you like ten! It will totally make you feel better. Justin and Zhengting are coming too, Zhengting just had to go change. He’s such a drama queen. You ready? It’s gonna be awesome. Let’s go, gege!”

Ziyi kept his eyes on Xukun as Chengcheng powered through his animated monologue – their surface calm as the seas, their depths just as hidden. It was as if a drawbridge was pulled up, and Xukun was left on the other side, staring up and up at the towering gates. 

He could no longer read anything in that look. Not a single thing. 

Ziyi then turned to Chengcheng, giving him a small smile. 

That one reached his eyes. 

Xukun could see the telling pull of delicate crow’s feet at their ends, and the wide grin Chengcheng gave looking up at him in response. He was clutching Ziyi’s left arm, while Ziyi’s right one rose to playfully tousle Chengcheng’s hair. Chengcheng’s. The kid who was widely known in the dorms for spending close to an hour every day fiddling with and arranging his shiny tresses, convinced they were some kind of a secret weapon. Chengcheng, who didn’t even blink at his hair now shooting out in all directions. He kept grinning at Ziyi through one errant strand covering his right eye, then tugged again.

Ziyi looked one last time to Xukun, breathed out a steady “Bye, Xukun”, then turned away. 

Xukun felt each word like a lash against his skin. 

One. 

Two. 

He stood frozen in the corridor, watching Chengcheng bounce on his feet like a small kid, and wave back at Xukun. He clung to the left sleeve of Ziyi’s top like he was scared he’d lose him if he let go. 

They got smaller and smaller. Xukun’s heart shrivelled up more and more with each step. 

What had he done? 

What had he done?


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, doors slammed and hallways echoed, as everyone slowly made their way home for New Year’s. A week off to celebrate with their loved ones. A happy time. A break from it all.  


Ziyi was gone before Xukun even knew. He made his way across the dorm just after 7 am, after staying up most of the night trying to figure out how to spell out ‘I was stupid and I’m sorry’ without actually having to say it. By the time he reached Ziyi’s room, the only person he found was Jeffrey, packing his cartons of eggs into a protective box, to store safely while away. Priorities.

When Xukun asked him when Ziyi left, Jeffrey shrugged and muttered it was a while ago, not really looking up. Xukun stood awkwardly at the door for a second, then quietly wished Jeffrey a Happy New Year, and traced his steps back the way he came. 

A graceless retreat.

For the following week, Xukun’s phone made a permanent home in his hands, even as his mother admonished him at the dinner table for refusing to set it aside. Its insides hid a growing number of draft messages. All of them pored over repeatedly and helplessly. All of them unsent. 

He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t even begin to figure it out.

He spent his days tucked in under blankets whenever he could escape his relatives, feeling dejected and strangely cold. In his low moments, he wasted hours laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying to recall the exact heat of each one of Ziyi’s comforting gestures. In his lowest, he imagined the ghosts of Ziyi’s fingers in his hair, the plush lips on his neck, that light brush on his hip. He had no more use for dreams.

He finally managed to send just one message, a “Happy New Year Ziyi, to you and your family”. The response came two hours later: “To you too Xukun, happy New Year.” 

Otherwise, Ziyi remained silent. 

Xukun felt the silence pressing against his ribcage, each bone splintering, heaving under its weight. By the end of the week, it squeezed him into place. A new place, a place of boundaries and limits. A place at a distance. 

Ziyi felt like another country, his borders sealed, perhaps forever. 

///

Late February brought snow, and with it a return to the dorms. 

Xukun saw Ziyi for the first time on his way to the set for a planned reveal session, his sharp inhale spluttering him to a stop. Ziyi walked into a row of chairs first, then quietly looked up to see if Xukun would follow. No words were exchanged, and a polite smile graced Ziyi’s face. Xukun settled in next to him, too relieved and dumbfounded to risk disturbing the unexpected peace by saying something stupid. 

While Zhang PD’s video message played on the screen to announce their concept songs, he spotted Chengcheng sitting with Zhengting, looking up at them. His lips were pursed into a small frown, eyes downturned and strangely serious. 

Just before Xukun was asked to come up and choose his envelope for the song first, Ziyi leaned in unexpectedly and whispered “Let’s make it good for the show, ok?” His face wore another small smile. Whatever mask this was, it was flawless. 

Xukun felt himself instinctively jerk back a tiny bit, hoping Ziyi wouldn’t notice the tear in his fabric following that reminder. 

As his luck would have it, they were placed in the same song group by the citizen voters. Less lucky was that the group also included Justin, Chengcheng and Zhengting – the proverbial Ziyi fan club. Ziyi seemed relaxed and undisturbed by this development. Xukun on the other hand… He could no longer tell how much of all this was real and how much was pretend. Whoever this Ziyi was sitting opposite him, he gave Xukun no clues either. 

For a flicker of time, a speck really, he found himself relieved when both Ziyi and he were voted into Team 2 for the song, away from Yue Hua guys. Then came the sore realisation: he was being petty, for no reason at all. In the end, what did it matter anyways, given they were barely speaking? Not to mention the other team were all good; much better than his one. Even though they still weren’t sure what this round of competition would be like, what the producers had up their sleeves, on principle he shouldn’t want to be in the weaker team. It would be foolish to look at Yue Hua from the other side of the room and feel anything other than discomfort. 

Worse yet, he could see Chengcheng glance across to Ziyi every so often. So often in fact that eventually Zhengting walked by quietly and gave him a small pat on the back. As if in comfort. Xukun’s right eye twitched. 

Thankfully, after an announcement, they were split into different rooms for the next two days. His overwhelming relief at being away from Chengcheng’s stares soon came to bite him in the ass. It became painfully apparent that if he didn’t help Ruibin, Minghao, Zhenghao and Li Rang, all of whom were in his group and all of whom were clearly struggling, he would be screwed. Really screwed. Worse yet, so would Ziyi. 

As a result, he spent the next two hours correcting their mistakes one by aching one. Pause, repeat. Pause, repeat. Again, again, again.

His perfectionist eyes saw every slip, noticed every stutter, every hesitation borne out of inexperience or lesser talent. With Ziyi’s obedient silence in the mix, taking each small correction as if it was inevitable, as if there was nothing more than between them than the fixed roles of the director and the directed, it made for a draining afternoon. 

And then, just as Xukun sensed anxiety grip his muscles and tug, threatening to bring him to his knees, Ziyi looked at him from the back. Looked him in the eyes for a still second, his eyes tracing the strain in Xukun’s own, the tightness of his features, the slight slump in his posture. The uncharacteristic irritation bordering on defeat. He registered, then without a word took over, slowly walking up to the front and calling for everyone to get ready for another walk through of the choreography. Xukun watched each one of them slowly turn toward Ziyi, grateful smiles on their faces, and, before long, embarrassed glances at the obvious kindness on display. 

His treacherous heart gave another thump. 

They were working together. They were setting aside this awful thing pulsing between them, turning Xukun’s insides into a wasteland of gratitude and regret. 

It should be enough. Shouldn’t it?

///

Jackson’s evaluation, when it finally came, was stern and without pretence: it wasn’t good enough. They weren’t good enough. He could see the faces of his teammates drop, the terror seizing their bones at the bare truth of it. At the truth Xukun was now a part of too, regardless of his rank, his fans, or his looks. This one he couldn’t smile and flirt his way out of. 

They returned to the practice room in a hush that chocked and maimed, and settled on the floor, each one of them frozen in a personal statue of defeat. Ziyi’s back slid quietly down the mirror in the corner and settled, looking down at his raised knees for a minute. Then his eyes lifted and searched out Xukun. Xukun was already there; seeing, understanding. Remembering that they didn’t need words – when he’d let himself remember it. 

Ziyi lifted himself up with one graceful stretch, his long legs propelling him forward, away from the rest. Xukun couldn’t stay away if he tried. He followed Ziyi to a camera-wired room, pausing at the doorway for a second, then entering too. Whatever Ziyi had planned, he would trust. Despite everything, by now he was ready to accept that he always would. 

Ziyi settled on the ground, then looked up at Xukun, quietly asking him to join him. Xukun knew what he would say before he even opened his mouth. He knew, yet his breath still hitched and his insides still throbbed. 

Ziyi’s voice was clear and steady: the two of them should agree to go to another team if their own needed to lose some members after the mid-way voting was done, so their weaker teammates didn’t have to learn a brand new choreography for one of the other songs. The sub-text was unmistakable, for anyone who’d paid any attention to Ziyi in the last few months. Xukun did. Even with that, the next words out of Ziyi’s mouth, whispered as they got up to leave, still managed to surprise and hurt. 

“The idea should come from you, Xukun. You’re the one who’s been helping them the most. It would make for good television. It’d be good for you too”. 

There was no judgment. Just a quiet certainty that this here, this would be another right step in the fixed direction Xukun had set out for himself. The direction he wanted and fought for. The direction Ziyi still wanted him to run in, despite Xukun casting him aside on the way. 

Xukun’s heart wilted. 

He still did as he’d been told. 

The cameras ate it up.

///

The dreaded second ranking announcement appeared on the horizon, bringing with it another cull, this time to 35 remaining trainees.

Xukun and Ziyi stood together in the stands – a wall of oppressively silent make-believe. 

Rui, the ‘Fairy Beauty’, got announced in a safe 23rd place. Before he could stop himself, Xukun shouted out in happiness. His mind flashed back to their 6 am conversation before the concept evaluation, Xukun sharing with Rui the story of Ricky, after he noticed Rui watching him apply make-up. He’d encouraged Rui to try something more daring, recognising the hunger in his eyes, the fear fighting it on the surface. The barest hint of desire to do what he wanted, without apologies. 

As his ge-ge stood on that stage and talked about having no regrets, Xukun felt it again: another whittle at that controlling heart of his, another splinter of caring slotting in its place.  


When 7th place was announced, he found himself instinctively reassuring Ziyi, reaching across and squeezing his left shoulder, Ziyi’s muscles twitching under his palm. His nerves were like a steady current of electricity, felled every few moments by an erratic zap that would not sit still. The silence around him amplified. Ziyi’s distance screamed.

Within minutes, Xukun found himself on stage again facing a final reveal for the first position. 

Somehow this one felt all wrong.

Like the loneliest place on earth. 

When the announcement was made, his gaze went instinctively to Ziyi. 

Ziyi, who was looking straight at him, a steady lake mirroring back: every wave, every leaf, every whirlpool, every sunny reflection, every dark cloud. The whole spectrum of what Xukun was feeling, of who he was. Crystal clear and so far away.

Xukun felt the spasm in his throat, the burning in his eyes. His chest heaved. He managed to stutter out a speech with a head and a tail, thinking last minute to make it something about his teammates, all the while staring straight at Ziyi. Willing him to recognise. Willing him to say yes. 

For them to try and make friends again. 

After the cameras stopped, he kept his gaze on Ziyi as he set down from the podium. He kept it on him as Ziyi paused for a moment standing next to Chengcheng and Justin, as if waiting. He kept it as Ziyi looked down with an almost imperceptible sigh, slowly walking away. 

The words didn’t come.

///

The next day brought another round of voting, another volley of grief. 

Xukun remembered his pact with Ziyi, the words that didn’t come. He willed other ones to surface instead.

He found himself advocating for Haohao, to avoid him having to learn a new dance in 24 hours. His fair dues were swift and predictable: Ziyi and he were voted out of the song group, exiled to the Listen to What I Say team instead. 

Xukun’s insides calmed for a moment. He knew this was a song that suited them both. After the near disaster that was PPAP, perhaps it would be a song he didn’t expect that would bring some joy. 

His own name was called, the new team’s first choice. 

Then came a flash of scenes in his mind that he experienced almost as if floating above the room, barely aware. A decision to spin the bottle to decide between Ziyi and Qin Fen for the second spot. Qin Fen’s worried face. Ziyi’s serene one. A flavoured water bottle. A flick of a wrist. 

When the bottle stopped, Xukun snapped out of it, and found himself half way to congratulating Ziyi, the frozen distance between them be damned, when Ziyi uttered “Do it again”, pointing to Qin Fen.

“I think it would be more fair that way. I think this opportunity is very important. Seeing how he is… you really want to stay in this group.”

Xukun couldn’t believe it. He could. 

The bottle spun, one rotation, another, then three. It stopped. His heart gave. 

In that moment, a powerful sense of fear slammed into Xukun. For the first time, he allowed himself to think about what would happen if he went ahead – if he moved and Ziyi didn’t follow. Not because Xukun wouldn’t let him, selfish as he was, but because the show got in the way on its own. As shows do. Xukun should know by now. 

The truth that followed was fierce and it trembled. Xukun didn’t want to do this without him. None of it. The show, the win, the group. The real question was whether this was in any way his choice to make. 

Ziyi’s face was a firm façade of casual ease. He hugged the stuttering Qin Fen, reassuring him this was right. He was out, and it was ok. He’d find another group to join, another song. Days before the performance. 

Nothing was right though. Not a single thing was ok.

Xukun was tired of pretending otherwise.

///

It was midnight. Xukun spent the previous hour on his back, staring at the top bunk of his bed, thinking about what next. Ziyi left their practice room after the song announcement, and was absent from dinner. His fan club was nowhere to be seen either.

Xukun tried not to worry. He failed miserably. 

Headphones in his ears, Rui’s nightstand lamp as his only companion, Xukun was reminded yet again of how lonely the last few weeks have been. He wondered if Ziyi felt that too, regardless of Yue Hua’s likely comfort. 

Why couldn’t he make this right?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Xukun reached below his bed, set out his flip flops and swung his legs out. Taking care not to wake Rui, he slipped out of his room and set down the hallway in the direction of Ziyi’s room. 

Once outside, he stared at the small blackboard pinned to the door. A smudged note about Qin Fen’s glasses being awesome, Justin’s signed drawing of Ziyi as a stick figure. Behind it was silence. 

Xukun raised his hand to the door. He could do it. He would do it. 

His hand hovered over the door for a tense ten seconds, then dropped to his side. 

Finding himself too awake to return to the room, Xukun retraced his steps then continued down the corridor toward the practice rooms. Maybe a dose of Monster’s choreography would help gather some courage, or at least clear his head.

Practice Room 1... Practice Room 2… 

Xukun walked down to his favourite, PR5, and pushed the door in. On the floor, sitting with his legs crossed and head down, was Ziyi. 

“Oh.”

At the sound, Ziyi’s head snapped up, and Xukun traced it. The tightness around his shoulders. The tension around his eyes.

Of course he was there. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

Xukun slowly closed the door behind him, then walked across to sit down to Ziyi’s left. He still didn’t have the words. But maybe that wasn’t what Ziyi needed anyway.

There was that quiet, and that heat. For once though, they were a comfort, at least for Xukun. 

Moments passed, with Ziyi’s head back down, eyes toward his feet. Xukun played with his headphones, head down as well. 

More silence.

And more.

Finally, Ziyi gave a big sigh that came out with a whoosh, and looked up. 

“What are you doing here, Xukun?”

The tone was careful, even. Like a current desperately trying to appear still.

Xukun took a shallow breath, then decided to go for it.

“I went to your room, then chickened out last minute. Was too wired to go back to bed. Decided to come blow off some steam. Found you here.”

“You were looking for me?”

Fuck it.

“Yes”, Xukun said, looking up. Ziyi’s eyes were careful as well.

“Why?”

That was the question.

“Because I wanted to make sure you were ok after you left the group. I heard you got moved to the ballad one. You’re a rapper, Ziyi.”

There was a scoff to his right. 

“I know I’m a rapper. You don’t need to remind me”.

Ziyi’s fingers were tugging at the fraying ends of his sweatpants, the only sign of possible distress.

“I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. You know I’d never do that.”

“Do I?” Ziyi’s gaze was the same clear and steady from before. 

Ouch.

Well, here goes nothing.

“Well you should. Of course I’m horrified for you, Ziyi – a rapper in a ballad group. I can’t believe you let Qin Fen take that spot. I really don’t get it.”

Ziyi’s sigh was small and resigned. He looked away.

“It was the right thing to do.”

“No, it wasn’t! The right thing to do was to make sure you stay! The right thing was to fight! To not just give it up like that!”

Xukun didn’t realise just how loud his voice got until he stopped and the room echoed the last traces of his words. Shit.

“You mean like you did?”

Xukun’s heart gave a lurch. Shame flooded everything.

What could he say to that?

Ziyi muttered something softly under his breath, then looked up. Xukun could feel his gaze burning at the right side of his face like a brand.

“I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I get that you needed to do what’s right for you. I told you I did. I just don’t get what this conversation is about. You told me to stay away, Xukun. It’s been weeks like that. Now you are here… Forgive me if I’m a bit confused”. 

The words were soft. They flayed Xukun open.

Deep breath, then out.

“You’re still my friend, Ziyi. I… of course I care. I wanted to apologise for that conversation a thousand times already, but I didn’t know what to say. Honestly, not a fucking clue.”

“So what are you saying now, Xukun?”

“I’m saying I’m sorry I said we should be friends later. I was stupid, and, fuck, scared probably. You know how much this means to me. But… I don’t know Ziyi. I saw you today with Qin Fen and I got so mad. I wanted to tell you before it was too late”.

“You were mad? Why?”

“Because… because I don’t want you to leave.”

Here goes nothing.

“I heard you say that one time that you wanted to do this with me. Well, I want to do this with you too.”

Shit, was that too much? Was it?

Xukun’s eyes found Ziyi’s, and a small zip of something passed between them. Shy and faint, but there. Ziyi just looked at him. Xukun waited.

Another small sigh, then “So what? You wanna be friends again? Because I’ve had a really crap day Xukun, and I’m tired of games and bullshit. We get enough of that on this show.”

Xukun could see how exhausted Ziyi was, and felt another flood of shame for adding to that. He’d do better, he told himself.

“Yup. I’ll even buy you some of those disgusting crisps right now to celebrate, if you want. And dance some Growl too. You know, icing on the cake.”

A booming laugh burst out of Ziyi, seemingly taking him by surprise too. He looked at his feet, then back up at Xukun, their eyes meeting again. A lazy smile stretched across Ziyi’s face. Xukun could feel his cheeks burn with a wide grin as well.

“Jesus, save me from that shit.”

“Yeah, yeah, you love it”, Xukun quipped. Ziyi was still smiling widely at him, then looked down at his knee where Xukun’s hand rested. Xukun hadn’t even realised, and slowly took it back. Ziyi’s eyes remained on that knee for a split second, then returned to Xukun. His smile stayed the same.

He then stretched out, and dropped to the floor, his hands reaching out behind his head. Xukun slowly unfolded next to him, settling into another silence that didn’t bite.

Ziyi was warm and he was there. Xukun closed his eyes and inhaled.

How much had he missed this?

They lay in silence for some minutes, just breathing each other in, when Xukun felt Ziyi shift. 

It came to him: they were talking now. He could let the words out.

“Hey Ziyi… You ok?”

Ziyi rearranged himself slightly to bring his right leg up at the knee, then sighed.

“I guess so. I mean, the guys in the new group are being really nice. They already offered to help me practice singing. Chengcheng also said Yue Hua trained them quite a bit in technique regardless of them being rappers, so he’ll show me some. I’ll just have to keep working at it.”

“Hmm….”

The silence stretched again, this time with an undercurrent of something. Xukun could feel Ziyi’s mind whirling away. He waited.

“Xukun?”

“Yeah?”

Ziyi turned his head to the left and looked at him. Xukun’s head turned on its own to meet his gaze.

Ziyi’s eyes were clear and open. Xukun felt like he was seeing him again, really seeing. Even the things he maybe didn’t want him to.

“Do you think I can do it?”

Ziyi’s voice was small, and ended in a whisper. Xukun’s heart squeezed.

“Absolutely. 100%.”

Xukun willed himself to keep the eye contact, to stand steady as Ziyi’s eyes flicked between his, left then right then left again, as if checking to see if he was being true. 

Then he smiled, and turned his head back up to the ceiling with a sigh.

“I trust you.”

Xukun’s blood rushed. Before he could think, he reached out with his right hand. Found Ziyi’s. Interlocked their fingers. Squeezed. Ziyi’s hand was a familiar heat.

After a moment, Ziyi squeezed back. 

///

The next two weeks passed in a blur. After that night in PR5, Ziyi went back to spending time with Xukun as before. Coconut waters in the morning made their return, as did early morning practices between just the two of them. The basketball court was still theirs for after-midnight sessions to blow off steam. Ziyi’s wide back was propped against his, as they worked on memorising their respective lyrics in PS5, passing a green tea between them. He would come to Xukun’s room at night after practice with his teammates, and slowly tell him about how it went, that long dark hair falling to his eyes: the good, the bad, and the ugliest. Xukun kept a steady stock of octopus and lime crisps under his bed. 

He felt himself being slowly lulled into Ziyi’s orbit, another lost planet seeking gravity. The heat was everywhere again: in casual touches to his neck while talking to Jeffrey in the corridor, or to silently thank Xukun for his encouragement after a tough practice; in Ziyi’s arm slung around his shoulders during late night snack sessions in Nongnong’s room; in the steady hand on his knee giving reassurance during choreo sessions; in those almond eyes that mesmerised and held, even when Ziyi looked elsewhere. Even in a playful slap to his butt during a basketball game, which had Xukun reeling before he remembered this was all normal. Or was meant to be anyway. 

Chengcheng was still there – a steady presence. The Yue Hua guys remained Ziyi’s dinner companions. He’d call out to Rui and Xukun though every so often as they walked past. Once he dragged Xukun by the waist to sit down in his lap, Ziyi’s hand remaining at the bottom of Xukun’s back as he turned again to the packed table cracking up at one of Justin’s stories.

Xukun felt his cheeks burn and his blood sing, sitting there frozen in place. His mind momentarily took him back to that practice room, and the intensity of that dream. Where Ziyi’s hand went next. Rui caught his eyes and held. A clear question. Xukun looked away.

Friends. They were friends.

///

Before long, the deed was done, and the performances too. Xukun was barely aware of his own, vibrating with anxiety at how Ziyi’s would go. He’d overheard his voice a few times here and there while dropping off water to Ziyi during practices, but the other boy was strangely wary about Xukun hearing him. He’d simply deflect and say he was saving it for the performance. 

Xukun’s stomach barely held up in the lead up, and floated in the ether during. In the end, as he long suspected, Ziyi was magnificent. Xukun stared at that monitor and felt all of him fill with pride.

Now the results were here again.

Ziyi’s score was finally announced, and Xukun hugged him hard, clutching his sweaty right hand to his. That heat seared and throbbed between them.

Seeing him on that stage, steady and strong, talking about the need to stay humble, about the need to stay focused and be serious, to not let down those who supported you… Xukun felt his stomach burn with the intensity of something that seemed determined to come out. 

Then it hit him, clear as day: he was still clinging to the last bits of that control. There was no longer any point though. No point in pretending like him keeping control mattered more than doing this with Ziyi. Than the growing realisation that somehow, in the last few months, he now found himself caring more about Ziyi’s result than his. Than the raw fact that each night, just before he dropped off to sleep, a small thought floated into his mind: a wish that dream of his was real.

It meant something. Even if Xukun didn’t particularly want to see.

Before he could properly make sense of it though, the blow.

Rui. Ranked 25. Cut from the competition. 

His safe harbour of a roommate. Cracking jokes on that stage, being a showman for the cameras one last time.

Xukun rushed to Rui’s side after the announcement, dragging him to a camera-less corner into a fierce hug. He couldn’t believe it. His arms shook, his fingers gripping Rui’s shirt in a spasm of fear.

He could barely look him in the eyes. When he finally did, it was worse than he imagined.

His ge-ge was smiling. Genuinely. Xukun could tell.

“Xukun, it’s fine, really”.

“How could this be fine, ge??” Xukun’s frustration was obvious, his hands gripping Rui’s shoulders.

“Because it happened Xukun, so it’s fine. You can’t control everything. Life would be boring if we did.”

The smile on his face was gentle as he said it. Xukun felt it as a stab and a twist in his gut.

He could see Rui’s gaze shift, a quiet steadiness falling in place. 

“I’m happy, Xukun. I was here. I did my best. It’s enough for me”. 

“Ge, how can this be enough? You are leaving. We aren’t done!” Xukun’s anger pulled at him, threatening to untangle him whole.

Rui’s smile was delicate, calm.

“It wasn’t mine to win, Xukun. I’ll try again. More competitions will come, or they won’t. But I met the guys. I met you. I made friends. That’s a win too, no?”

The rational, competitive side of Xukun’s brain screamed in desperation. Thrashed to pull at Rui, push him, do something. No, this wasn’t a win. It wasn’t a win at all. 

But that sliver of love that got into his heart gave a small tug. It reminded. His features froze, and his breath held.

Rui’s eyes twinkled. He saw his sharp knowing arrow flew and hit home, one last time.

“I have to go, Xukun. I want to say bye to everyone, for the cameras one last time. I’ll see you later in the room?”

Xukun could only nod, a small unwilling tremor. Disbelief still pulsed in his veins.

Rui turned slowly to walk away, then paused. He turned back, his features flickering an inner tug of war: hesitation, determination, resignation. One small shadow of pain. He set his shoulders back, and looked up, straight into Xukun’s eyes. 

“One final thing, Xukun, just in case we don’t have time tonight. Don’t be an idiot. I don’t know what you guys are or what this new truce is about, but you’re not friends. Stop lying to yourself. Learn from me, Xukun.” 

Rui took a stuttering breath, then powered on. 

“I’m content. I’m fine. But things we love aren’t just going to be there forever, patiently waiting. I know you care about me because you told me. Because you showed me. Today it’s me, tomorrow it could be Ziyi. Grab it by the neck Xukun, and don’t let go. Before it’s too late”.

One final arrow, straight and true. 

In that moment, it was like the last bit of string holding him up to his old self snapped, and fell away.

He was tired of waiting. He was tired of working so hard to only ever play it safe. He was tired of keeping himself searching for something he already knew he’d found.

His eyes trailed Rui as he made his way back to the stage, then floated across each face one by one.

He spotted Ziyi with the Yue Hua guys, patting Qin Fen gently on the head. He was maybe a hundred metres away. It felt like five thousand.

Xukun felt his legs shake, his chest heave. His entire body vibrated, like it knew it was standing on a precipice of some kind, waiting to be pushed. Knowing it would come. Hoping whatever release it brought would be harsh and swift.

His eyes traced the edges of Ziyi’s jawline, the strong bridge of his shoulders. They touched on that slicked back hair, the pillowed lips, the handsome face. The solid arms that provided comfort, promised solace. The arms he mistook as shackles, threatening to distract him away from his goals. Instead, they were safe havens. Dreams he’d been too afraid to embrace. 

Maybe they weren’t his dreams to have, but he’d never know unless he paid a visit.

Was he really going to do this?

It was one thing to let Ricky kiss him in the privacy of a bathroom thousands of kilometres away. 

It was another to confess to a fellow competitor in the middle of the most publicised talent show in China. Weeks before the final vote. Surrounded by people whose reactions, if even the hint of it got out, might blow it all, his hard work included, into amber and dust.

Not to mention he had not a single clue whether Ziyi’s affection was a solid reflection of the strength of a friendship, or a momentary glimpse past the surface of something more, as yet untold.

Was he really, really going to do this?

He could feel that heat burn and singe from across the distance between them, blasting him straight through.  


Ziyi moved to walk away.

Xukun ran.

Fifty metres.

Twenty.

Ten.

Two.

“Ziyi, wait! I… I have to... Ziyi. Can we talk?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating has been changed, in case it wasn't clear where this was going. Please keep in mind!

“Ziyi… Can we talk?”

Xukun stood an arm’s length away from him, panting lightly. Pink cheeks, eyes wide.

Almost instantaneously, Ziyi struggled not to react. Had to warn his treacherous brain not to recall Xukun’s similarly flushed face, appearing quite often in his dreams lately. Usually spread out underneath him, shadowed by the low light near his bed, eyes fluttering shut, the side of his neck exposed. Once, memorably, hovering above him, hair in his face, arching back as Ziyi reached out to push it away. Ziyi could still hear Xukun’s airy breaths echoing in his ears. Sense the feel of his tongue on Xukun’s silky skin. Remember the imagined taste of him.

His dick stirred. Ziyi shifted his weight. Xukun was still staring, those grey eyes pinning him down.

Ziyi clocked Chengcheng and Justin flicking their gazes between the two of them, confusion slowly appearing with each passing second. It made him realise he hadn’t said anything. Probably for longer than was normal. He had to snap out of this.

“Of course, Kun. What’s up?”

Ziyi was proud that his voice didn’t waver. He could still feel the weight in his boxers, and prayed to everything holy that no one else noticed. God (and half the dorm by now) knew he was fine with nakedness, not to mention sexuality, but even he would struggle to explain a growing erection moments after a whole bunch of guys were basically cut from the competition.

Ziyi saw Xukun balance awkwardly on his feet, the pink on his cheeks morphing into red. He looked painfully uncomfortable, glancing toward Chengcheng and Justin, then jerking his gaze back to Ziyi.

“Umm, could we maybe talk alone?”

Ziyi noticed Chengcheng bristle lightly. He thought again that maybe he should have said something to him by now, something that would have made it clear to the younger than Ziyi and he were never going to be more than friends. He’d felt Chengcheng’s eyes on him, and could read them as well as anyone’s. It was a crush that Ziyi should have nipped in the bud ages ago. Least of all because he knew it wasn’t really kindness not to, no matter how much he told himself the crush was innocent. Least of all because he knew he himself was crushing badly on someone else.

His eyes drifted back to Xukun, whose shoulders stood iron straight. His eyes though blinked once, twice – betraying what Ziyi recognised as Xukun’s version of anxiety. Whatever this was about, it was clearly better discussed somewhere else.

“No problem. Guys, I’ll catch up with you later”.

Ziyi gave a small nod and smile to Xukun, and turned to leave the stage, figuring Xukun would follow. His head start would hopefully give him just enough time to rearrange the inside of his trousers before whatever they had to talk about got even more weird.

He stopped at the exit of the stage, and turned around. Xukun started slightly, his eyes fliting up to his, then dropping down to his feet.

“What about the court? I really should take a shower, but we can play a round if you want. Either way, it’s gonna be quiet now, if you want to talk first…”

Xukun gave a tense nod. Whatever this was about, it was clearly making him antsy. Ziyi just hoped it wasn’t another ‘we can’t be friends’. He didn’t think he’d survive a second one of those.

The weeks after Xukun dropped the first one on him were… hard. He kept rewinding each one of their encounters in his head late at night, looking for clues as to where it all went wrong. How he messed it up. He went through their texts only once, with the same purpose. It was too painful to see it painted in black and white though: what they were. Good. Easy. Fun. Friends.

To him though, always more. The talk felt like the worst breakup, especially because he was usually the one delivering the bad news, and so was ill prepared for the thorns that accompanied the aftermath. Leave it to Xukun to pull him down to size for once.

The worst was seeing him in person. Where before there was flowing conversation and cushioned comfort, he now stumbled his way through frozen politeness. He knew whatever reason Xukun had must have been at least partly his fault. Politeness was the least Ziyi owed him. Xukun was still there outshining them all, a star on its inevitable journey home. He couldn’t stand in the way of that, hurt feelings or not. He knew better than that. Cared better than that too.

It was only when Ziyi caught that pitch perfect smouldering gaze in the mirrors during practice, that body moving with casual perfection, that the stab in the gut returned. Or Xukun came close enough for Ziyi to smell that heady scent that was uniquely his; that had embedded itself somewhere deep within, a Pavlovian hit to his groin and his heart each time.

He was Prometheus, and all of Xukun was his raven, picking away daily at will.

The last few weeks since their talk was possibly even worse. Alongside unintentionally caught looks and overwhelming scents, he now had the rest of him to deal with too. The purposeful Xukun who again sought him out, who sat on his bed, whose eyes slanted into crinkled candy as he grinned, whose pitched laugh chimed in his ears – a constant melody of him.

He knew he should’ve probably tried to maintain some distance. He’d gotten too comfortable before. Likely came on too strong. Just because he was clearly beyond reason at this point didn’t mean Xukun wouldn’t feel, yet again, that certain boundaries shouldn’t be crossed.

After all, they were on a show with some thirty other competitors. While most of them were touchy with each other, Ziyi suspected only a few would have been ok to know that for him, the touches carried more than simple brotherly love. His own friends at home were open. It definitely didn’t mean the guys, and most of China watching them, would be. As it was, Weibo was already full of nasty comments getting louder every day, suggesting he was only using Xukun to get ahead in the competition. He couldn’t imagine what they would be like if the public got even a hint of Ziyi’s real feelings.

So he gave himself pep talks each morning. He made sure to still hang out with the Yue Hua crew. He forced himself to call Xukun ‘bro’, instead of Kun they’d both gotten used to. He even told Jeffrey to tell him “Don’t be stupid” each night before bed, thankful that his bewildered roommate knew by now simply to accept it.

But distance was hard when you had all of Xukun to contend with. When he was again near enough on a daily basis for Ziyi to see that mark on his left cheek up close, driving him slowly insane. That smooth jaw. The tiny waist.

The afternoon he pulled him into his lap in the cafeteria was clearly a mistake. But the memory of Xukun’s lighter weight on him, Xukun’s heat settled against his, the small shiver he sensed as his hand moved across Xukun’s lower back… He came at least three times in the following 24 hours just from recalling those few minutes.

And now Xukun was here, looking up at him with those expressive eyes in the darkened corner of the deserted basketball court, clearly nervous. Ziyi tried to remember what he looked like before the ‘I need to concentrate’ speech. Was Xukun like this? Was that sense of doom the same as the one he was feeling now?

Fuck.

This was ridiculous. Whatever Xukun had to tell him, Ziyi would listen. But if Xukun wanted to pull another ‘let’s not be friends’, Ziyi wouldn’t stand by and let it be this time. He couldn’t force anyone to be with him, especially not as more than just friends. If that was even a possibility though (and Ziyi wouldn’t allow himself to even consider it), another round of hot and cold with Xukun wouldn’t get them there. His own feelings grew since then. It was pointless to hide it.

So if Xukun didn’t want to be friends anymore, Ziyi was determined to hear why this time – the real, true why. Even if his splintered, poorly bandaged heart got completely ripped apart in the process.

He told himself weeks ago that he had questions. Now he was ready for some answers.

“What did you want to talk about, Xukun?”

\\\\\

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Shit.

Why did he think he could do this?

Xukun could feel himself zipping with nervous energy, the tips of his fingers itching.

Ziyi’s eyes were their usual steady mirror, unflinchingly looking at him with something that looked to Xukun like steely determination. As if he was readying himself for an assault of some kind. Xukun internally scoffed at the irony. It was his own heart that was being assaulted, and Ziyi was the one to blame.

Xukun took a steady breath. You can do this, Xukun. What’s the worst that can happen?

Yeah, best not think about that.

Shit.

“Hmmm, so how are you?”

Oh Jesus.

Ziyi’s head tilted slightly to the side, one eyebrow twitching up slightly. Determination slowly shifted into confusion. Xukun couldn’t blame him.

“I… I’m ok. I mean, I feel really bad for the guys. I promised Jeffrey I’d meet him after a shower to go around and see them. There was some talk about everyone meeting up in PR4 to plan something before they leave. Like a cake or a party or whatever.”

“Aaah, yeah, that sounds good.”

Oh God, he was a moron. What kind of an opening was that?

“Was that what you wanted to talk about?”

Damn Ziyi and his normal brain, which picked up on normal cues and could verbalise them normally too. Why could he not have fallen for an entirely not-normal, empty-headed idiot?

“Hmmm, no. Not really.”

Shit.

Ziyi stood there, looking at him. Two seconds. Five. Eight.

Xukun had a brief thought about how long he’d survive simply staring at each other before his insides genuinely combusted, then reminded himself he’d delayed too long already. He remembered Rui. He thought of all the times he wanted to say something and didn’t. All the times he wanted to let go and didn’t.

He had to be brave.

Here goes.

“I wanted to talk to you about us. To explain.”

“Explain what?” Ziyi’s eyes moved to slightly guarded, his posture straightening.

“Explain why I’ve been acting like this. Well, like I’ve been acting for a while.”

Xukun could see the return of confusion, Ziyi’s eyes narrowing. His face gave a small smile though, as if even though he had no idea where this was going, he didn’t want to discourage him. Ziyi being Ziyi.

Xukun nodded. He breathed in.

“I don’t know where to start.”

Ziyi’s eyes turned kind. “Start wherever you want, Xukun. It’s just me. You can tell me anything. Here, let’s sit.”

Oh God. Xukun lowered himself down the side of the bleachers and crossed his legs, his fingers going automatically to the laces of his shoes. Ziyi settled in across from him, mirroring his pose. Everywhere was quiet. Xukun could feel it bouncing around in his head.

“Ok. Umm… So I guess I should start at the start, right?” Xukun’s eyes slinked back from Ziyi’s right knee to his eyes. They were warm. Ziyi nodded. Xukun nodded to himself too.

“Well. I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I never really had a lot of friends.”

Xukun could see Ziyi’s eyes flicker with something like surprise, then move into steady waters again. Simply looking at him. Xukun moved his eyes back to Ziyi’s feet, and forced himself to continue.

“I trained a lot. Like a lot. Started young. There wasn’t really time for anything else. California was a bit of a break, but when I came back it just made me stand out even more, you know? I felt different. It was difficult to hide it.”

Ziyi nodded, urging him on.

“SWIN was awful. Really. I thought it would be good for my career – my manager said so. Added exposure and all that. But I’d forgotten how to just hang out. I didn’t know talking shit about people behind their backs was how one was supposed to belong. I didn’t realise how hunger made people desperate, and desperate made for nasty, and nasty spread.”

He could feel Ziyi shift slightly next to him, his hand reaching out to Xukun’s left knee. A steady heat that tempered itself in Xukun’s blood.

“The win was great. I mean, I was a kid. Looking back, I don’t think I knew 5% of what I know now. I just expected it all to work out. Never mind that the guys weren’t necessarily all that nice to me, not all of them at least. Or that the company reps seemed shifty as hell. I trusted, you know?”

His silence was the comforting kind. Xukun took another ragged breath, then exhaled.

“You know what happened next. Shit, half of China knows. On a bad day, it really felt like that. For a while, all days were bad. It took my manager weeks of convincing to even get me to seriously consider Idol Producer. I knew it made sense – I had to get out of that contract, and being involved in a highly publicised show would help put pressure on them to cave. I knew it’d be popular. My career needed it. But all I could imagine was another few months surrounded by nastiness, back stabbing, petty cruelty. Of being on edge. I was really tired, Ziyi.”

The hand on Xukun’s knee squeezed again. His thundering heart did too.

“Then it started and it felt different. You showed up too. You were… nice doesn’t sound right. You were… you? I don’t know. Shit, this is embarrassing.”

Xukun could feel his face burn and put his hands up to cover it. It was out there now. He didn’t know if he could finish it.

“Xukun. Hey. Look at me.”

Xukun gave a desperate groan and jerked his head. No way was he facing Ziyi.

After a second or two, he felt slender fingers twist themselves under his and pull, then a prod at the side of his eyes. They opened to a smiling Ziyi, who squeezed his fingers again, then winked at him.

Winked.

“It’s ok, bro. You got this, bro.”

A broken huff snort laugh burst out of Xukun. Ziyi just grinned.

That asshole.

Xukun sensed a momentary flush of ease flood through him. How the hell did this guy always know what to say? Pulling the bro shtick he knew Xukun found cheesy right in the middle of his on-going meltdown…

Xukun recognised this was Ziyi’s way of making him feel more relaxed, and felt a bout of bravery. This was the person he’d fallen for. Kind, considerate, funny. If he didn’t say something now, he’d only have himself to blame for having lost it – if there was any bit of Ziyi at all that was Xukun’s to lose.

“Ok, so yeah. You were great. Really. I kept thinking you would turn into an asshole. That all that help to the other guys was just a well-developed front of some kind for winning the show. I was certain.”

Xukun watched Ziyi’s face fall, his eyes slinking downward. Xukun rushed to correct this.

“I was totally wrong! I mean yeah, totally. I know that now. Or I knew it. I guess I just didn’t want to see it. It would make this too hard.”

“Make what too hard?” Ziyi’s voice was low and steady. It echoed in the quiet of the court.

Xukun looked down.

“Us. Well, the old us, and… I guess I can’t say the new us, but maybe it’s something like that…?”

“What do you mean?”

Here goes.

“Ok, this is really hard to say. I… I was so happy that you were my friend. It really felt that way – I could tell you things, and you wouldn’t be an ass. You were funny. You were kind to me. You were kind to the others. I was proud to call you my friend. I thought it proved I could do this – that maybe it wasn’t me who was so fucked up that no one would want to even go there.”

Ziyi squeezed his knee again after a second, urging him on.

“I was totally fine. And then… something happened. And I realised that maybe I was seeing you differently. I… I saw it differently. And it made me completely freak out. I thought it was best not to be friends anymore, or at least to keep a distance. I didn’t want to freak you out too. You were so nice to me, and here I was bringing my own shit. You didn’t have to deal with that too.”

“What do you mean different?” Ziyi’s whisper was even lower, barely there.

Xukun breathed in, his lungs heaving. He exhaled slowly. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He looked up.

“Please don’t hate me.”

Ziyi’s eyes flashed, his hand squeezing Xukun’s.

“I would never. I could never. You know that, Kun.”

The worst thing? Xukun knew. It still didn’t mean Ziyi would love him instead.

He had to try though, right?

Think like Rui, think like Rui, think like Rui….

Xukun steeled himself, then looked into Ziyi’s eyes again. This was it.

“Different like not friends different. Different like more different. Different like… shit, different like like you different.”

The last words whooshed out of Xukun. He felt like the rest of his soul came out with them. The silence stretched. Ziyi kept staring at him.

Xukun’s heart sank. And kept going.

Then: “Sorry, what?”

Ziyi’s eyes were wide, disbelieving. His hand on Xukun’s knee was iron tight. It looked to Xukun like he was ready to jump out of himself. Xukun just prayed it wasn’t in his direction, or in anger. That he couldn’t take.

But he’d gotten this far. It was too late not to push through til the end. Xukun was no quitter.

“I like you.”

Ziyi’s eyes widened further, and his breath stuttered.

“You like me?”

“Yes.”

Silence. Xukun sank further.

“I’m sorry, you are going to have to run this past me again. You like me? What do you mean?”

Xukun’s stiffened. It was one thing for Ziyi to reject him, it was quite another to humiliate him in the process by getting him to repeat himself over and over. But if that’s what Ziyi felt Xukun deserved, then fuck him. Xukun decided he had nothing to hide. What’s the worst that could happen? Who would Ziyi dare to tell, without him being implicated too? Xukun knew where they lived, how taboo this all was. He wasn’t going to be embarrassed. He thought Ziyi would be kinder, but if this is what it took for Xukun to get going on getting over him, then fine.

Xukun looked straight into Ziyi’s eyes, determined.

“I mean I like you. I mean more than friends. I mean I want to kiss you. I mean I want to touch you. I mean I want to… What the fuck do you think I mean?”

Xukun knew he sounded angry. He could feel the bursting of bubbles in his heart, bubbles grown out of every past kindness of Ziyi’s, every look, every scorching touch. If anger could allow him to save face long enough to run away without Ziyi witnessing his breakdown, some uncharacteristic anger he could live with.

Ziyi’s eyes were still hooded, reserved. He looked like he was balancing on a landmine, carefully avoiding movement so not to blow himself up.

“Are you sure?”

Xukun had enough. This was cruel. He could feel the walls around his heart tumble down, leaving him fragile, exposed, resigned.

He looked up at Ziyi. He told himself he’d say this, then walk away. He tried. He failed. What more was there to learn?

“Yes.”

His voice sounded broken. He was broken.

How he would recover from this, he hadn’t a clue.

Around them was an oppressive stillness, like air before a summer storm.

Xukun looked down to his crossed feet, steadying himself to get up and start his walk of shame.

Then came the lightening.

Xukun barely registered Ziyi’s warm hand wrap around his left cheek before a hot mouth was on top of his. It bit down lightly onto his bottom lip. It smoothed with a scorching tongue. It pressed in further. It demanded.

Xukun could feel Ziyi vibrating all around him.

He gave.

Xukun had no idea if ten seconds or minutes passed when Ziyi pulled back with a gasp. Xukun’s mouth trailed him, unwilling to let go. His head swam. He could sense Ziyi catching his breath, his forehead resting on Xukun’s. Ziyi’s right hand was gripped around his neck, as if scared to lose contact. His eyes were closed, his long eyelashes brushing Xukun’s face. Each touch felt like a thousand volts.

Xukun had to remind himself to breathe.

What?

“Xukun. Are you absolutely sure?”

Ziyi’s eyes opened, looking straight into Xukun’s. They were wild. Ziyi’s left arm, which Xukun realised was supporting his weight by resting on the side of the bleachers, tensed.

Xukun’s brain couldn’t come up with a single thing to say.

He gave a small, jerky nod.

The smile that burst out of Ziyi was like the end of a hundred storms all at once. It was manic. It was beautiful. Xukun couldn’t help but grin back just the same, his heart seconds away from annihilation.

Ziyi pulled himself to his feet, then took Xukun’s right hand and pulled him up too. He settled Xukun to the side of the bleachers, and walked right into him, their torsos lining up against each other. Xukun’s skin burned.

Ziyi stared at him, his eyes fliting across every bit of Xukun’s face, as if trying to scan it for memory. He muttered a quiet “Fuck, look at you”, then leaned in again.

Ziyi’s lips were soft, pillowed, sizzling. He surged into him and Xukun could feel himself breaking. Ziyi’s tongue dipped in, his lips pressing, teasing. His left hand grabbed Xukun’s waist, pulling him forward. Xukun could feel the shape of Ziyi’s erection brush against his own. Both groaned into each other’s mouths, panting.

Xukun felt like scorched earth after a storm.

Ziyi pulled back, resting his head against Ziyi’s forehead again. He whispered, barely steady. “Shit, Kun. Shit. Tell me this is real. Tell me I’m not having another pathetic dream all on my own.”

Xukun grinned. His insides surged. Was Ziyi saying what Xukun thought he was saying?

“Nope, all real. Do you… do you like it?”

Despite them being so closely entwined that he could feel Ziyi like a second skin, Xukun couldn’t help but ask. Couldn’t help but be sure.

“Do you seriously need to ask? Isn’t this proof enough?” Ziyi’s voice was like broken glass, chiming in his ear. His erection remained solid against Xukun’s hip.

Xukun felt himself turn momentarily shy. What if this was just a casual make out kinda thing for Ziyi? What if he was just releasing some pent up energy? Did he even like guys? Was Xukun just something to use before other, female body parts became available again?

He dropped his eyes down, and could sense Ziyi’s follow. Ziyi’s fingers appeared under his chin seconds later, pushing them up.

“Xukun, are you serious? Look at me.”

Xukun breathed in, then looked up. He could see Ziyi size him up quietly, before giving a small smile and shake of his head.

“Sorry, Kun. I forced you to say it, then assumed you would just know. God knows I had no clue. If you only knew…” He shook his head, giving a small sad smile, then looked up.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, Kun. I can guess though. This, between us… this isn’t... Even back when I thought we’d just be friends, I wanted you. I’ve wanted you for some time now. Badly. Fuck, really embarrassingly badly. I thought that’s why you didn’t want to be friends anymore. That I was too obvious…”

Xukun couldn’t believe it. He laughed, then reached out shyly to smooth down Ziyi’s wrinkled forehead when he saw his face fall slightly.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I’m just realising we’re both morons. Ok, maybe me more than you, but same difference.”

Xukun grinned at him, and sensed the tension in Ziyi’s body slowly ebb away. Ziyi smiled too, those warm eyes crinkling at him. Xukun felt it: another bubble had reappeared.

Ziyi ran his right hand across Xukun’s hair, humming lightly, then gave a soft kiss to his left cheek. Xukun burned. Ziyi looked at him like he knew.

Then he sighed and whispered “I think we should head back. The guys are bound to wonder where we disappeared off to. I don’t want them bursting in on us. Not that I want to hide you, but you know…”

Ziyi looked worried momentarily, but Xukun knew what he meant. He nodded.

Ziyi grinned at him again, then took his right hand, intertwined their fingers, and pulled him toward the exit. Xukun saw him look back, and felt him squeeze once. That heat spread again.

He could feel nothing else for hours.

///

The following days were like drifting on a cloud, without being aware there was even an earth beneath. Ziyi and he again found themselves in the same room to perform Mask with Zhang PD for a collaboration stage – their last before the show moved to 20 contestants only. This time though, their grouping was nowhere near accidental. They looked at each other once following the song announcement, and just knew.

Happily, Chengcheng chose a different song group. Though Ziyi didn’t tell him much, Xukun sensed they had a conversation of sorts. Chengcheng still hung out with Ziyi alongside the rest of his Yue Hua brothers and snuck a glance or two, but it felt lighter somehow. Like Chengcheng had resigned himself to another fate. Xukun was secretly glad. He didn’t think he was the jealous type, but every time Ziyi looked at him from across a busy room with a small grin, he wanted to peel back all of his clothes slowly, then replace them one by one with his mouth. His imagination was running on fevered fumes. He could understand Chengcheng, as long as Xukun was the only one who got to act out those images in real life.

Not that they’d been doing a lot of acting out after that day at the basketball court. Their practice schedules meant that there wasn’t much time to hang out, especially as they also had a party to plan for their departing friends. He also wanted to spend as much time with Rui as possible before he left. That there… that was a hard day.

Instead, Xukun had to be happy with light passing touches to the inside of his wrist or his neck. With silly texts that woke him in the morning, and kept him company as he settled into his bed at night time.

Not to mention that one red heart that flashed across his phone the night before.

Xukun received it a whole minute after their last good night text, as he was getting ready to set his phone away. When he saw what it was, his face singed. His blood rang. He threw himself over onto his stomach, and breathed into his pillow, fighting a manic grin.

He stared at it for twenty minutes, before slowly drifting to sleep.

///

The celebratory mood of the collaboration stage soon turned predictably sour, as twenty of them once again found themselves on camera facing Zhang PD, this time to hear their two debut songs. Ziyi and he shared another one of their looks, and once again everything was clear. Ziyi chose the Rap 3 spot for Mack Daddy. Xukun kicked Chengcheng out of the Vocal 1 spot for the same, but kept him in for the same song. He wasn’t cruel – this was the final, and he knew the song suited Chengcheng better than the ballad.

The important thing was their next performance was their final one, and Ziyi and he were once again a team.

He felt slightly bad walking across to Chengcheng, but the kid simply nodded at him with a small smile. It wasn’t great, but Xukun could live with it.

Ziyi smiled at him from his spot. Xukun grinned back. That invisible chord between them, somehow still growing stronger day by day, tugged.

Then came the practices. If Xukun thought keeping away from each other for a week was hard, seeing Ziyi practice that choreography for hours was torture. The mirrors saw everything and so did he: each wink, each stretch of that long body, each flashing of his flat stomach, each time his tongue stuck out, each “eyes on me” growled into the microphone. Jesus.

By the end of the week, his nerves were shot. The final live performance was days away, and with it his chance at joining the hottest band in China. He should be thinking about his own footwork. Perfecting his own looks in the mirror. Worrying about voting, and whether his IKUNs would come through for him one last time. Instead, he was there, laying down in his empty room at 1 am, vibrating in his skin.

Maybe he should just go take a cold shower. Or a hot one, and rub one out while he was at it.

Or…

It was a long week. It was a long day of three hour practices, followed by some more. Most of the others were as tired as he was. Dinner was a tense affair, as was the evening training. Everyone drifted off toward their rooms, the normally loud dorms silent under the weight of their collective exhaustion. Ziyi had texted him forty-five minutes ago, saying Jeffrey and he were planning to play another round of Halo, then head to bed.

The last kiss they snuck was five days ago, light and shy, stolen early in the morning in the deserted bathroom before jumping into their rushed showers. Having less guys in the dorm helped minimise the risk that someone would walk in, but they still had to be careful. The ever present cameras made them even more on edge.

Xukun felt it though. He wanted more. He wasn’t willing to wait. When would they next have the chance?

He looked around his empty room, his bunk bed the only one left occupied. His door had a lock. There were definitely no cameras here.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he grabbed his phone and shot out a quick text.

**12:58**  
**You asleep?**

He tucked himself back into his covers, putting the phone to his chest. His heart was racing.

He didn’t know what would be worse: that Ziyi wouldn’t answer, or that he would.

His chest buzzed lightly. Xukun whipped it out from under the covers.

**12:59**  
**Yep. What’s up? You ok?**

Shit. Shit.

Deep breaths, Xukun.

**01.00**  
**Wanna come over to my room?**

Xukun held his breath. The buzzing re-appeared seconds later.

**01.00**  
**on my way.**

Xukun momentarily froze, then jumped out of his bed and rushed to tidy the wrappers and empty bottles by his bed, then to brush his teeth in the corner sink. Should he change? His PJ bottoms and t-shirt were from his California days, washed out, but clean and comfortable. Would Ziyi care what he wore?

Before he could overanalyse this to death and turn over his closet in search for something better, he heard a light knock on his door.

With an unsteady breath, Xukun walked across and opened it. Ziyi’s smiling face was looking at him. He whispered out a low “Hi, Kun”.

Xukun’s insides clenched.

Ziyi closed the door behind him, making his way to Xukun’s bed. Xukun quickly locked the door, as quietly as he could.

Ziyi settled in on the edge of the bed, then looked up at Xukun, who was now awkwardly standing beside him, unsure what to do with himself.

“What’s up, Kun? Couldn’t sleep?”

“Yep”, Xukun replied, “something like that.”

Ziyi smiled his soft smile, then ran a hand through his hair. His arm muscles rippled. Ziyi’s tendency to wear those stupid wife beaters would be the death of Xukun.

“Wanna watch a movie? Didn’t you say you wanted to watch the Avengers?”

Ziyi was looking up at him, and Xukun was helpless to do anything but nod. So much for courage.

Ziyi pulled him onto the bed, settling them against the wall next to each other, then reached across to grab Xukun’s laptop. Xukun quickly lined up his usual website, and hit play.

Ziyi’s right shoulder was burning into Xukun’s. Ziyi’s hand scorched his with each flick of his thumb on Xukun’s skin. The expanse of Ziyi’s naked skin was taunting him. Xukun sat silently, staring at the screen, willing himself not to look anywhere else.

After ten minutes though, Ziyi stirred, his eyes swinging to Xukun’s face.

“You ok?”

Xukun’s neck was on fire. How could he explain that all he wanted to do was swing himself over into Ziyi’s lap and seduce the shit out of him?

Ziyi’s fingers slowly traced their way up the inside of Xukun’s left arm, nails leaving tingles in their wake. After a few moments of silence, Xukun couldn’t control himself, and shuddered, closing his eyes. Ziyi hit the space bar. Xukun’s small exhale shot out into the room.

“You know, we could do something else. I didn’t really feel like watching a movie anyway.”

Xukun was afraid to open his eyes. After he processed that statement though, something didn’t feel right. He peeled them open slowly, and saw Ziyi’s cocky grin. The bastard knew what he was doing. Ziyi lifted that perfect eyebrow once, as if to say “You gonna do something about it, or what?”

Admittedly, unlike with girls, Xukun had far less clue what to do here. Kissing was kissing though. Plus Xukun didn’t get as far as he did without knowing how to bluff his way through.

Fuck it.

Xukun lifted himself off the wall, and swung his right leg across, settling into Ziyi’s lap. Before Ziyi could do more than startle slightly, that smile quickly sliding off his face, Xukun’s lips were on his. Xukun could feel himself melt into it.

Ziyi didn’t react for a second, then moved. His right hand went to the back of Xukun’s head, deepening their kiss. His left settled into its usual spot at Xukun’s waist, draging the shirt aside, brushing Xukun’s skin lightly. Both their breaths hitched into each other’s mouths. Xukun gave a small involuntary groan. Ziyi hummed, pulling him closer, and shifted his mouth to the side of Xukun’s neck. That hot tongue swirled in a perfect pattern down to his collarbone, the tiniest scrape of teeth following each turn. Xukun shivered. Ziyi pulled him in even closer.

Xukun could feel his dick stirring to painfully hard with alarming speed. As if aware, Ziyi whispered something that Xukun thought sounded like “shit”, and shifted both his hands down to his waist, pulling away from him with a rugged exhale.

“Xukun, I want to see you. Can I take this off?”

Oh God. Xukun felt a rush looking into Ziyi’s eyes, normally so steady, now pulsing with something dark. He nodded. Ziyi tugged the shirt off, then stared.

After a painful few seconds, in which Xukun felt a panicked desire to cross his arms on his chest, Ziyi looked up at him, eyes clear as a spring.

“You're so beautiful. I can’t believe I’m here.”

Oh God. Oh shit. Xukun launched himself at Ziyi, his tongue finding Ziyi’s, Xukun’s hands finally diving into that stupidly perfect hair. It felt exactly as silky as Xukun always imagined. He felt himself getting even more hard.

He felt Ziyi drop his hands away from him, then begin to tug off his own shirt.

Xukun’s heart threatened to stop. Ziyi’s chest heaved. All that flowing muscle, glistening in the soft light of his bedside lamp.

Leaning in to rest their foreheads together, Xukun braved his fingers to trace Ziyi’s collarbones, then drop down his chest, toward his stomach. He could see the happy trail down to Ziyi’s sweatpants, and before he could tell himself to hesitate, brushed across it lightly. Ziyi twitched with a sharp inhale Xukun felt on his face. Xukun flicked his gaze back to Ziyi’s eyes. They were smouldering.

Before he could close his eyes, Ziyi’s mouth was back on his, rough and demanding. Like he couldn’t get enough. Like he never wanted to.

Xukun was getting lost, fast.

Ziyi’s fingers were everywhere against his skin. A squeeze against his waist. A grab to his shoulder blades to bring him even closer. Another maddeningly light graze, this time against his Adam’s apple. A hand in his hair, twisting.

A sizeable dick throbbed beneath his.

Xukun was shivering.

Ziyi’s lips untangled himself from his for a centimetre, brushed once again lightly, then whispered words that would split Xukun into pieces.

“Kun. Shit, Kun. I want to make you feel good. Will you let me?”

Xukun squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to keep afloat. A hand came up to his jaw, tilting it up.

“Look at me”.

Xukun couldn’t but obey. Ziyi’s eyes were like obsidian. He looked as debauched as Xukun felt, and a small burst of something like pride shot through Xukun. He wasn’t the only one feeling this. Maybe Xukun didn’t quite know what came next, but this was Ziyi. He trusted him. Absolutely.

Xukun nodded. Ziyi’s eyes widened, then slotted back over Xukun’s, his hot tongue scorching a path of absolute doom.

Xukun could feel Ziyi’s fingers slowly inch into his sweatpants, his nails tracing the line left by the elastic, then reach inside. His big hand wrapped itself around Xukun’s dick. It gave a slow, maddening tug, which started low, then twisted itself with rising pressure on the way up.

Xukun’s back arched itself away, Ziyi’s other hand supporting him, feverish bites to his collarbone trailing in his mouth’s wake.

Ziyi’s hand continued its pressure, each twist bringing a new shudder. His mouth slotted itself back to Xukun’s, his tongue echoing the rhythm of his hand. Xukun felt himself melting.

Then Ziyi pulled away with a rushed exhale, snapping his head back to rest against the wall. He stared up at Xukun hovering above him. His hand continued pumping. His eyes were wild. He brought his hand up to his mouth to spit on it lightly, then slid it back down Xukun’s dick.

“Shit Kun, I wish you could see yourself, baby.”

Oh.

Oh, oh, oh.

Xukun felt his balls get heavier and heavier, a vortex twisting and turning in his gut. He felt mad. He felt close.

In a rush of nerve, he brought Ziyi back to his mouth, then reached down to Ziyi’s boxers peeking over the top of his sweatpants. Brushed lightly on top of the fabric, over the entire length of him. Ziyi groaned.

It went straight to Xukun’s dick. His head was a mess. He wouldn’t last much longer.

“Ziyi, I… I don’t think I can… longer. I…”

In another space and time, Xukun would be embarrassed by that sentence, or the breathy way in which he rushed it out.

In this space and time however, he could just stutter a pained sigh and moan as Ziyi pushed his own hand underneath Xukun’s, released his dick, and joined it with Xukun’s, skin on skin. His hot tongue returned to Xukun’s mouth, lips strong and steady, swallowing Xukun’s increasingly ragged breaths. His hot hand pumped them together, the drag of their heads tight against each other making Xukun keen.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Then everything shattered.


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, Xukun walked into the dining room after a twenty-minute pep talk, and much hair-pulling in the privacy of his room. As expected, Ziyi was right there, back turned, sitting at the usual table with the Yue Hua guys. His hair was up in a high pony tail, exposing his long neck as he leaned forward with a laugh. Which reminded Xukun of the feeling of fluttering his hands across it, in between digging into his shoulders, and running his fingers through Ziyi’s hair. Which made him think of Ziyi lightly pressing his lips against Xukun’s own neck, as they lay back to front before Ziyi finally snuck off to bed. Xukun flushed and prayed no one noticed.

He made his way across to the table and sat down opposite, next to an animated Justin, half way through a shrieking story about the upcoming performance and his practice last night. Everything was doom, apparently. For a second, Xukun delayed looking up, suddenly fearful that he was doomed too. What if it was awkward? What if Ziyi ignored him? What were they even thinking? 

Finally steeling himself, his eyes flicked up to find Ziyi already looking at him. Those bottomless eyes traced Xukun’s face slowly: flicks against his eyes, cheeks, nose, lips, jaw. Back again. After a breathless few moments, just as Xukun’s heart began to thump so erratically he thought it might combust, Ziyi’s eyes shifted. He smiled. Big, and wide, and free. 

A leg brushed against his; a firm press, there to stay. 

Xukun grinned, and felt free too.

///

That evening, they were rushed onto a recording stage for a surprise visit from the singer Jolin. 

Frankly, Xukun despaired. He was a professional, and the smile on his face said so. He respected his senior in the industry. He was also dead tired – exhausted from staying up with Ziyi the night before, made worse by the eight-hour practice they just ran through, with breaks so small that they might not have even been there at all. His muscles screamed at him. Tucked behind him was a thermos of cold tea and honey, his fifth of the day. He felt like all of him was close to being squeezed out. He could have done without this. 

Then he saw Ziyi’s face, flickering between concern and fear and doubt and determination – so fast Xukun couldn’t say with 100% certainty that he wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t there. Ziyi’s right knee jumped in a steady beat – a tell-tale sign. 

It all made sense when Ziyi took the mic and asked Jolin about how hard it was to be himself when others wanted him to be someone else. When they judged. Xukun heard him catch himself, and clarify it was about clothing and not wanting to wear something. The real message was there though. Ziyi still had the never-ending public comments about the two of them in his mind. Xukun could see the worry, even if Ziyi didn’t seem to want to catch his eye. He felt appreciative, then all of a sudden fiercely protective. 

A quiet sense of sureness came to him as he listened. They were in this together, no matter what. If Ziyi was the one who made everything better for everyone else, Xukun would try his damnedest to be that for him.

Another splinter slotted into his heart, and locked.

///

The next 48 hours were largely forgotten – Xukun was barely aware of time at all.

The only thing he remembered was a frantic few minutes after they listened to messages from their families the day before the performance. Ziyi suddenly appeared on their way back to the dorm, tugged him into an empty practice room, and hugged him so fiercely Xukun thought he would break. Before he could even ask, Ziyi surged, energy crackling around him, and kissed him. 

All rushed breaths, all scorching tongues, all wandering hands, still not enough. 

Xukun felt the inside of him rise up to meet this, every bit of lost energy recharging to get lost better, with him. He felt alive. When Ziyi broke away after a minute and whispered “I hate this, but we have to go”, Xukun met his eyes with a promise. This was enough, for now. 

Then it was finally here.

Something strange happened during the final performance itself. Like all the debris and the cobwebs got flushed away, from his eyes and his skin. Xukun saw and he felt. His eyes drifted across to Ziyi, and Xukun could see the same clarity. They were here. This was it.

There was nothing that would change that. 

When Ziyi was finally announced as coming 7th in the live show, it’s the most right thing Xukun has ever felt. A puppy pile of contestants rushed against him while the room screamed. Xukun’s hand got there too, rested against his lower back, then he hugged Ziyi as everyone else finally dispersed. Forcing himself to let go. Forcing himself not to cry. 

Until he saw Ziyi up there on the stage. Thanking the citizen producers, then his family, then the other guys. Until he added “in this period of time, I am thankful for fate”, voice steady and true. Looking straight across to Xukun with a small smile.

Xukun felt his throat close and his head buzz, then a chocked up laugh escape his throat. 

Fate.

Zhengting rested a hand against his shoulder and squeezed.

Then it was finally time. Nongnong and he, standing on the stage together, facing the cameras and lights and phones and flashes. The wired up sound thundering around him. That dramatic music. One last pause.

Xukun won.

He won. 

He cried, he thought. He said something. He felt everything. 

And on his way up to the top of the pyramid for one last time, he turned left and tucked into Ziyi. Felt a light brush against his wrist. The comforting scent. The inevitability. 

He was here and he was no longer alone.

///

That night, when the last post-production meeting finished, and all the cables and balloons were cleared, and the celebratory candles got extinguished, Xukun knocked on Ziyi’s door. It was the final night they would spend in this building. Most left hours ago. Only Ziyi, Xukun and the other seven stayed. For once, Xukun was glad for their overeager managers and their insistence to get going with promotions first thing tomorrow morning. 

The barely there “come in” spurred him into action. 

Ziyi sat on the edge of his bed, still in his show clothes, head tilted down toward his hands. Xukun closed the door behind him. The gentle click stretched across the silent room.

Ziyi slowly looked up. His eyes shone.

“Can you believe this?”

Xukun laughed. It was disbelief and euphoria and lunacy, but he felt it too. Ziyi looked mowed down by it, his hair sticking out in all directions. He mowed Xukun down too.

Xukun laughed again and before he knew it, he was in Ziyi’s lap, fingers digging into his back, Xukun’s lips sucking the heat off of Ziyi’s scorching ones. Tireless, pushing, pulling, again. They felt frantic with it: with victory, with conviction, with themselves.

Ziyi moaned, then pushed himself away, though his hands remained at their place, at the bottom of Xukun’s back. Xukun felt their heat seep into his skin. He shivered.

“Xukun… I don’t want you to…”

Ziyi seemed to struggle to get whatever it was out. Xukun wasn’t sure if waiting him out or interrupting was worse.

“Have you ever done this, done things like this before?”

And there it was. The big question. Xukun felt his cheeks pinch. He took a sharp inhale. 

A moment passed.

“A bit. With girls mostly. Never like this.”

“Ah.”

Xukun tried hard to take that ‘ah’ at face value. Ziyi wouldn’t make fun of him at a time like this. Still, his stomach squirmed. 

“And you?”

Ziyi seemed to hesitate slightly, his eyes flicking down to their hands. Then, a quiet “yes”. 

Xukun felt a rush, a whirlwind of questions. When? With whom? How many times? Oh god, is it better if the answer was many or a few? And what did he mean by 'this' exactly? Did he even want to know?

If was like Ziyi heard; heard and knew. He surged into him, his tongue tracing shapes, his hands holding tight. Reassuring. 

"With you, I swear it's different. Shit Kun, I'm not lying, it's like the first time. It's ridiculous. I have no idea what to do. Shit..."

His voice... Like ragged shards of glass, broken on a velvet glove. Pain and pleasure.

Ziyi surged, and Xukun ebbed, and they crashed.

"Are you sure about this, Xukun? Are you sure?"

Ziyi's eyes were frantic, his chest heaving. Xukun felt it, and wanted more.

He nodded. 

Ziyi's smile was glorious, then settled into a dimmed heat. 

"I am going to make you feel so good. Can I? Kun? Baby?"

Oh. Oh no.

Xukun let himself be picked up, clutching to Ziyi's wide shoulders, then settled back down onto the edge of the bed. 

Ziyi removed his top, then set to work on Xukun's. Hands drifting down. Pulling on his belt. Pushing his trousers down. Revealing his thighs to the cold air. Touching to warm. Touching to heat.

Xukun's brain barely functioned. It pulsed with something and pushed him out. He stopped thinking, and felt instead.

Ziyi's tongue lapped across his collarbone. Moved down his chest. Nibbled on his hip. Looked up. Exhaled. 

They inhaled together. 

The strong hands went to Xukun's boxers and pulled. Drifted back up his legs, then his thighs. Followed with his mouth. Paused to check. 

Xukun had to stop himself from pulling Ziyi's hair, from pulling his own. He frantically nodded again. 

Ziyi smiled that smile of his. Then. Soft tongue on his groin. A hand on his dick: a perfect pressure, a glorious twist. A wet swipe across his balls, then another: dipping down, swirling. A trail of wet heat going up and up. Engulfing the throbbing tip. Sliding into the slit. Sucking the head in. More heat. More of him. More. More.

Xukun's hands twisted into the sheets and clenched. He vibrated. He moaned, and Ziyi moaned around him, a heated breath, a heated mouth, a heated set of tangled insides. 

Xukun could feel it floating up, his stomach muscles clenching, Ziyi's left hand smoothing down the shocks. 

Then, momentary cold. 

Then, Ziyi's broken voice. Scratched, twisted, low, so low. 

"Xukun, you can do it to me. Please... I want you to do it".

Xukun looked down, dazed. Ziyi was flushed, smouldering brightness, glowing hunger. It took him a second to process the request.

Oh damn. Oh damn. Oh damn. 

"Ziyi, are you sure?"

All Xukun saw was Ziyi's eyes fluttering closed. All he felt was the vibration of a desperate moan on his dick. He pushed in, slowly, lightly, still unsure. Ziyi's hand on his thigh squeezed, and another pained sob broke the surface. Xukun couldn't believe it. 

With ragged breaths, he moved his hips, then slowly snapped again, and again. The heat was everywhere. Every twist burned. Xukun burned too. 

He had just enough sense to tap Ziyi on the shoulder, before he was coming down Ziyi's throat, which constricted all around him. Tight, sheltered, safe.

After a few moments, he opened his eyes when he felt a kiss to his inner thigh. There was Ziyi, looking up at him with a smile. So sure: that this was right, that this was ok.

Xukun wanted.

Ziyi wasn't the only one who was sure.

 

\\\\\

Xukun touched him. His weight settled back into his lap. His nose gently brushed across his neck, traveling down.

Ziyi thought he heard him whisper, low and maddeningly slow: “You are so warm. So, so warm. I knew you would be…”. 

He burned brighter.

Scorching lips set across his collarbones, and Ziyi’s breath hitched. He wanted to throw something or do something, but forced himself to stay still. Xukun was exploring him. He was taking charge. He wanted it, and Ziyi was helpless. 

He wanted this too. 

Fingers found the ridges on his stomach, the dents on his sides, each plane on his back. They caressed. Slow. Infuriatingly careful. Then increasingly sure.

Ziyi closed his eyes and repeated like a mantra: in, out. In, out. Despite this, he felt there was nowhere near enough air in this room. Nowhere near for the black hole that was developing in his chest, sucking it all in. He barely held on.

Then he felt the brush of breath on him. A moment of stillness. A warm tongue flicking up. Gently enveloping. A steady hand. A hum. A twist. A stroke, then again.

And again.

And again.

Madness and light.

///

 

Afterwards, Ziyi laid them down on his bed, tucking Xukun’s head on his right shoulder, Ziyi’s head resting lightly on top. Xukun could feel Ziyi’s ribs against his torso, expanding and deflating with a shuddering breath. 

Then he reached out and took Xukun’s right hand, laying it on his chest. His heart was thundering. Xukun felt it jump under his skin. For a few seconds, Xukun simply stared at their hands stacked over each other, at those layers of muscle, and tissue, and veins, covering another elemental part of him. In a fell swoop, an irrational fear floored him – a fear that one day, maybe, possibly, God, what if likely, he wouldn’t have this. That all that was Ziyi wouldn’t be there, for Xukun to touch, certainly not like this. His stomach turned, and breath held. 

What if that happened? What would he do? 

He felt frozen with it, pressure pulling at the ends of his eyes, making him blink. 

Until Ziyi reached out with his other hand and tilted his head back up. His eyes found Xukun’s. In them was gravity and warmth and assurance. He said it all. 

He was here. He would be here. He promised.

Their hands touched. Ziyi’s heart kept beating. 

Xukun’s breath cracked. Released.


	10. Chapter 10

The months that followed were like tectonic plates: constantly shifting underneath their feet, with cracks that miraculously held, then settled. 

Sometime in May, a nervous Ziyi sat him down and played him the demo of Awoken My Heart. He looked everywhere but at Xukun until the very end. Xukun held the headphones to his ears, then set them down and threw himself at Ziyi. Hugged him fiercely, and pretended not to notice the light tremble of Ziyi’s body. That evening, he caressed, and brushed, and inhaled, and pushed until they no longer knew where each ended or began. Until Ziyi no longer feared, and no longer doubted – himself or them. Things were blooming around and in them, and Xukun understood. 

Which is what made it even harder to steel himself for his own revelation a few weeks later. To sit still while Ziyi held Xukun’s worn notebook in his careful hands, warm brown eyes flicking quickly across the page, while Xukun bit his tongue and forced himself not to explain. He tried not to think about Justin, who had become their biggest cheerleader, calling them Dad 1 and Dad 2 when no one else was around. Tried not to think about Chengcheng, who turned into an unlikely quiet ally, patiently explaining to Nongnong and Yunjin, who slowly came to understand, if not entirely accept. About the others who still didn’t, and perhaps never would. About what an after for them might feel like. About the shame he still felt at times, and his shame about that shame. How could he, when it was Ziyi this was about. Who was looking at him like this.

“Wait, wait, wait, you are the one I’m waiting for.  
Carrying the weight, weight, weight, is better than to let you go….  
To carry the weight of us, this love, is killing me, but it’s better than to let you go…”

Just when Xukun thought Ziyi had misunderstood, he reached out and took Xukun’s hand. Like months before, he brought it to his lips, then trailed it down to his chest, opening the buttons with his other hand. His face tinted with a faint smattering of red. Xukun’s fingers traced down, until they hit a small ridge – a ridge that definitely wasn’t there before. 

“I did it last week. I thought it would be a surprise, but then didn’t know how to show you, or how to tell you…”

Ziyi’s voice was soft, gentle, careful. As if one wrong word would tip Xukun over the edge. It left a question mark in its wake.

Xukun pushed the shirt back to reveal the expanse of Ziyi’s chest. The chest that was now lightly pink and featured a white ink tattoo: a pencil-thin shape of a hand over his heart. 

Holding it up. Holding it safe.

Xukun’s eyes watered.

Ziyi’s whispered “Yours…” echoed in his ears for hours after.

Xukun brought him a surprise cake for his birthday, with a Happy Birthday Boogie on it. Ziyi proudly posted it on Weibo. Their secret felt weightless for a day. That night, they left for a celebration of their own, which ended with them tangled together in bed, giggling as Xukun failed yet again to perfect Ziyi’s hand sign. Before they well asleep, Ziyi whispered "Thank you, boyfriend" in his ear. Xukun blushed, then burned. Sleep took a while to come.

Not everything was perfect, of course. Ziyi got tired, as did Xukun. Their schedules made it inevitable. They were prodded and prettied until they blazed and bled. They practiced until they could no longer stand. Their bones ached. Their smiles learned how to permanently freeze in public, even when pushed and shoved in a frightening throng of people who wanted more of them than they could ever give. Ziyi withdrew into himself regularly, especially in early mornings, when he couldn’t stop himself from reading the most vile online comments; the worst form of self-inflicted masochism. 

It took Xukun some time to figure out that this didn’t mean he wanted away from him too. He learned to wait. He learned to ask. It took time, and it took hurt. 

But where once Xukun saw uncertainty and felt fear, there was now only certainty and calm. They were like floating in the Dead Sea: he felt suspended, by gentle ties he never noticed, and these days barely felt. All around them were murky waters. Their unknown depths were forever hidden, just waiting to claim. But his body held, and knew it would not fall. 

The knowledge lodged itself deep, welded itself to each strand coiled tightly together, and made him anew. 

And every day Xukun felt it. Every whisper. Every sound. Every smile across changing seas of faces, directed at him alone. Every brush across the inside of his wrist – a brush that always centred and always stilled. 

The look Ziyi was giving him now, across this stage. The small, barely noticeable touch of his left hand up to his chest, where the tattoo lay hidden. A reminder. A promise. A flare.

These days, Xukun was consumed.

He was all heat. 

All pinpricks.

All tingles.

He was each and all flutter of butterflies. 

And Ziyi was too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long, everyone. I went traveling (including to China), then work took over.
> 
> I am so grateful to those of you who joined me for this story, especially those who were there from the start, irregardless of if you commented or just read in silence. I am still learning. It meant a lot to finish this. 
> 
> May you be well, and take care.
> 
> There are more stories to tell. 
> 
> Thank you.


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